To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Pryer, Sharp and Yong.

To receive declarations of interests from Members of the Panel in respect of any item to be considered at the meeting.

None received.

To note the Part I minutes of the meeting of the Panel held on 25 January 2016.

The Vice-Chairman of the Panel (as Chair of this Panel Meeting) made a statement regarding the minutes of the previous meeting. He stated that Cllr Sharp had raised concerns that the minutes were not a verbatim record of the meeting however, the Vice-Chairman had read the minutes and there was also an audio recording of the meeting available and he was satisfied that the minutes were as accurate as they could be. An update report had also later been made available by the Transport Team and was delivered to himself and Cllr Sharp.

The Part I minutes of the meeting held on the 21 January 2016 were agreed as a correct record.

Opening remarks by the Chairman on the Panel’s role.

The Acting-Chairman stated Panel Members and Officers were aware of the role of the Panel. It looks to save energy and carbon tax for the Council and ratepayers.

By the Energy Reduction Manager (Michael Potter), RBWM.

Michael Potter, Energy Manager, explained that the Maidenhead District Energy Network was a decentralised energy scheme which could potentially benefit the Royal borough. Should Members agree to investigations being carried out, and the scheme was deemed viable, it might lead to a commercial enterprise and a reduction in energy costs for the Council.

The District Energy Scheme would make the Borough more efficient and would help provide network stability; the recommendation asked Members to comment on the scheme and indicate if it was something that was worth supporting. If so, the Energy Manager would investigate it further.

Due to the regeneration of Maidenhead Town Centre, there were many buildings next to each other being built, refurbished or converted which required energy. All of those buildings could be supported by energy supplied in forms of heating or lighting in a low carbon form of energy production. An estimated £6,000 budget was required in order to carry out a feasibility study.

Decentralised energy was where energy was converted to useful forms of energy locally instead of being supplied by the National Grid. Normally a combined heat and power (CHP) unit would be used as a decentralised energy plant. Other generation technologies could also be incorporated into the scheme such as solar panels.

The Energy Manager had been in discussions with Mark Shepherd, Regeneration and Property Service Lead and his team were open to ideas and was happy for the Energy Manager to investigate options. There was a concern over how to fund the project should it go ahead but, at the current stage, it was important to discover if the scheme was viable first.

The Energy Manager stated there might be a possible need to acquire outside advice on general costs and at the current stage, the capacity that would be required was not known. Ideally, he would like to see the Town hall and Maidenhead Library connected to the scheme as well as other large buildings near to the Town Hall.

David Scott, Head of Governance, Partnerships, Performance & Policy (Monitoring Officer), commented that it was good timing to look into the scheme whilst large scale regeneration was ongoing in Maidenhead Town Centre; it was a good opportunity to incorporate the project at the same time. He added existing capital funding could be used to carry out the investigative work required. The Vice Chairman requested the Energy Manager talk to Wokingham Council and request a visit to see their energy scheme.

UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED: That: the Members of the Panel provided positive support and comment on the District Energy Network proposal. The Panel agreed that the scheme should be investigated further, an initial high level assessment would be carried out by a specialist consultancy to determine the viability of a district energy network in Maidenhead at a cost of £6k to be funded from the existing capital budget (Code CY03).

By the Energy Reduction Manager (Michael Potter), RBWM.

The Energy Manager stated a company called Stark collated all of the Council’s corporate half hourly energy consumption data; that included energy consumption data from the Council’s mandatory half hourly meters, non-half hourly meters and automatic meter reading gas meters. He added that the half hourly data collated from the smart meters and mandatory half hourly meters could be reported in various formats. The data could be shown over various reporting periods such as daily, weekly, monthly and yearly.

The Energy Manager continued to explain that Stark could produce many different reporting formats using the data over the various reporting periods; some of that allowed more detailed analysis and some provided overview management information.

The Energy Manager directed Members of the Panel to page 31 of the report which detailed the top ten high energy intensity sites. He explained that car parks were on a different intensity ratio to other sites. The key issues highlighted were that River Street public convenience, Oakley Green Cemetery and Eton Library are sites with high electrical intensity. Eton Library were looking for replacement heating systems as a result of their high consumption. The Energy Manager also reported that the Manor Youth Centre’s gas consumption issues had been resolved and they had reduced their usage by 50%. When looking at gas and electricity consumption combined, some sites were still using more than expected. The Energy Manager stated he was going to investigate the public convenience at Riverside as the overnight consumption was still very high.

The Energy Manager explained how waterless urinals worked and how he was putting together a water baseline. To start looking at how the Borough could reduce its water usage he was looking into waterless urinals being installed in public buildings and public conveniences. The financial benefit of waterless urinals was estimated at between £100 to £200 per year; per urinal. The Energy Manager did not have the costs of the waterless urinals but, he explained they had a fast pay back rate of under five years. He added there were a number of different systems available in the market.

The Vice-Chairman stated he was not ready for a presentation at that point but that it was something worth investigating further. The Head of Governance, Partnerships, Performance & Policy (Monitoring Officer) stated a scoping paper would be organised for a future meeting.

The Energy Manager explained the Sustainability Strategy Action Plan for 2016/17 and stated the proposed sustainability Strategy Action plan for the coming year could be found in Appendix two of the report. It was recommended that the action plan be adopted in order for the Council to meet its strategy targets and aims. He added there was further investigative work to do on the LED projects and he was unable to confirm the waste target so that would be provided at a future meeting.

Councillor E. Wilson asked if there was a section in Around the Royal Borough where the Borough could show how much energy it is saving and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

The dates of future meetings are as follows (7.30pm start in the Council Chamber, Town Hall, Maidenhead):

·         16 May 2016

·         12 July 2016

·         3 October 2016

·         29 November 2016

·         19 January 2017

·         6 March 2017

·         9 May 2017

Details of future meetings for the next municipal year  were noted. The next meeting was noted as scheduled for 16 May 2016.