UKH

I know that the Achille Ratti hut, Bishops Blaize(?) has solar panels, and that the LMC hut, at Bedgellert has ground source heating. Are any other huts taking such actions?

The Oread is looking at putting additional insulation on the exterior of Tan Yr Wyddfa, don't think there are big plans for Heathy Lea (it's leased and we have done quite a lot to it already).

Better insulation, that sounds a good idea.

People are thinking about it, but it needs a bit more thought than the standard domestic stuff. Huts are unoccupied for ages, then full for a bit, then empty again for ages. Some of the things you'd do domestically would be counterproductive for a hut.

What ideas are they thinking about?

Surely they're going to produce no more than the average home? Less in fact, as the heating could be for 10+ people rather than <5.

It depends, at the weekend, it could be full, in the week, one person, but I fail to see your point.

They could ask everyone going to the hut to turn the heating off in their house for the weekend...

Absolutley, I am sure the federation of plumbing would consider this an amazing idea.

Anyone with a smart thermostat (e.g. Tado) already has.  You can drop it to frost protection without any risk to the pipes.

No they have not, it was suggested to turn the heating off, and not everyone has such an up to date hearing system.

You don't have to read it literally.  If you turn a system to frost protection for a weekend it's very unlikely the temperature will drop enough for it to turn on, unless your house needs serious work on its insulation.

All heating systems have a thermostat.  Turn it to 5 degrees before you walk out the door.

I despair sometimes, half a second to save emitting a load of carbon.  Do humans deserve to survive?

Or just not go... What's the travel CO2...?

But this is not actually taking any actual action at the hut, itself, as outlined in the OP, but turning the heating down at home, is a good plan.

As I approach a hut and see it lit up like a cruise liner with everyone sat in the common room, I do wonder if turning the lights off when one leaves a room could be a good idea, but then I am led to believe, leaving some bulbs on, is more efficient.

I think pedantry might get us first...

Yes, but that's not going to happen. But more car sharing, there is an idea.

Maybe that's why you didn't hear the whoosh!?  

The single best thing they could do would be halve the size of their car parks and encourage car sharing/public transport use etc.

Turning off lights, extra insulation and so forth are great and should absolutely be done where possible, but they offer minor savings in comparison to cutting out even one typical car journey to a hut each weekend.

I would agree, however, as many people go to huts in vans, I suspect many would wish for bigger car parks, and vans seem to lend themselves to less sharing.

It is a conundrum, and I found the comment, that it is being thought about, a tad dispiriting, as the we have known of these issues for many years, so in my opinion the time for thinking has passed.

Only fluorescents - they use quite a lot of power to start up as they have to heat the electrodes.

Which I guess brings us to how they can save - switch to LED.

It would be interesting to do a review of a climbing hut energy usage and use the data to review exactly what investments where would have the most impact. 

They may qualify for the GLLM Green Digital Academy fund? Targeted at businesses but also I believe, open to community enterprises etc.

https://www.gllm.ac.uk/busnes/projects/green-digital-academy

Vans are less sharing friendly as the smaller ones tend to have less seats than a car of similar size (mine included).

The issues have been clear for years, but there has been a significant shift in public attitude over the last 4 or 5 years driven by improved awareness. Those who are coming late to the party are reasonably wanting to confirm that what they are implementing is going to be appropriate for their use case and available budget while actually making a meaningful change.

Having a go at organisations when they start to do the right thing can be quite counterproductive.

Yes

I do not understand what you are trying to say.

Who is having a go at any organization, asking a question is not a criticism.

They have been fitting frost stats to heating systems for at least 30 years.

A 10 minute shower at 7.5kW (generous) - 0.175 kg CO2 [1]

Boiling an overfilled kettle 4 times (4x0.2kWh) [2] - 0.112 kg CO2

Cooking a meal - let's take a middle ground punt at 3kWh for 0.42 kg CO2 [3]

900km round trip from London to Llanberis - about 72 kg CO2 per car [4]

Let's pick our battles shall we.

[1] - https://app.electricitymaps.com/ UK was at 140 when I wrote this

[2] - https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/how-much-electricity-does-a-kettle-us...

[3] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/energy_saving_tips

[4] - https://uk-cms.parkindigo.com/wp-content/uploads/CO2-Emissions-9.png

I forgot to answer your point about lights directly, but I'll leave working out their carbon footprint as an exercise for you. It'll be interesting to see if you do think through the relative scale of the things we can change for yourself. 

You're looking at tiny gains here that just aren't worth the effort. 

Just run the huts off electric.

It's already 50% decarbonise.

It won't be long before it's close to 100%.

Goal achieved by doing nothing.

If, per person, huts are considerably more efficient than the average home, then it isn't something I would worry about personally.

I almost wrote a post along these lines. If you leave your house for the weekend and instead stay in one that's shared with 15 others, travel aside there's a decent chance you'll be emitting less carbons. 

Couldn't be arsed with all the whatiffs and nuance required to follow it through though so I thought better of it.

......not go by car.

To be honest, I was looking for a way forward, maybe share ideas. I have been reading "let my people surf" and though flawed, the idea is good, so my mind was ticking.

I gave a couple of what I consider positive examples, and was hoping for some inspiring ideas others have done, maybe wind turbines or whatever.

Spenser mentioned the insulation which seems a good idea, but after that, turn the central heating down, and maybe change the light bulbs, hopefully with someone elses money.

I tend, like Yvon, to have a very pessimistic view of the chances of us dealing with the environmental issues we face, and nothing in this thread has given me much room for hope.

If you're putting up a wind turbine, why would you choose to do it at a hut over somewhere windy?

It was just a thought, having seen properties in rural areas, that have them.

To be honest, I am looking for a posiive way forward, not an argument. 

I will leave you with it, ta ta.

Sounds a bit like you were after an easy virtue signal without giving any thorough consideration to the bottom line environmental impact, so yeah, maybe leave it to someone else.

What number did you come up with for the lighting?

If you're serious about it, you need to take a thorough, considered, analytical approach to it; LSRH gave you a starter:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/mitigation_of_co2_of_climbing_h...

You need to examine the hut's energy budget; where is energy coming from (and how much CO2 that produces), where the energy is going: uses and losses. That will include the access costs for users.

Then rank them in order, and think about how they might be reduced, both in energy use and CO2 contribution. Then consider the lifecycle cost of implementing measures; what is the CO2 payback period? For instance, going for a full 'ecohouse' approach would require demolishing and rebuilding; a rather long CO2 payback, perhaps, as well as financial.

There is unlikely to be much you can do beyond what you would do for a domestic situation, so look for guides on reducing CO2 cost for an existing house. You may have some more opportunities for local generation, such as small wind or hydro, but ground- or air-sourced heat pump might be more productive than for a domestic situation.

Reducing access CO2 costs is again conventional travel stuff, so look to guides for that. Maybe consider charging stations for EVs, to encourage EV use. Certainly encourage users (presumably a club?) to lift share. Go back to the old YHA model; users arriving on foot/by bike/public transport get preferential access/reduced rates?

Is the Energy Saving Trust still around?

I recently looked into this in some detail, there was recently a big project which you can find out about on this link: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/life/publicWebsite/project/LIFE15-CCA-ES-00005...

Everything you say is true, but I was just looking for some real world examples,  information sharing.

Years ago I tried to get charging points at huts, I think I suggested people get free charging for a period to encourage use, to jump start things, this did not go down well.

That is interesting, thank you, but different challenges to most UK huts.

In the UK, the two examples of mountain huts installing renewable energy are the CIC hut with a 3kW wind turbine and Glen Affric hostel with a smaller turbine but rooftop solar as well.

what are the different challenges? 

One of the challenges with car charging at huts is that many huts are effectively on a domestic electricity supply but have far more than domestic usage.

Many huts have two ovens and multiple electric showers, inevitably they all get used at the same time and I know of at least one hut where this can frequently trip the electric circuit.

Add in someone charging a car and the whole system will fall down. Also unless it's a fast charger which adds to the above problem one charger is no use if you really want to encourage electric car use, there could be several cars that need charging over the course of the weekend.

Why? Shouldn't they have topped up in the area before a local drive to the hut?

Absolutely, I believe the main up Langdale for example will not support the power for EV charging.

But what about, Solar Panels or Heat pumps, possibly an idea for huts. Obviously you may not be aware of the Achilli Ratti huts solar panels, if more people know of these things, possibly they will follow the example.

I

It's not that simple, people are going after work, they want to get to the hut, relax and have a beer, not sit waiting for the car to charge.

If they have one at home, they could do that overnight before going to work.

The challenges in the study refer mainly to using diesel for power generation and flying supplies in by helicopter, which is not very common in uk climbing huts. 

The examples of wind turbines at those huts is interesting, not something I was aware of.

As well as the use of the electricity concern, there's the cost of installation in the first place. Is it fair to make the members in general pay for that, when it's probably only a small minority would would benefit?

I'm sure some might prefer that but it seems fairly extravagant to me for a club to make a pretty significant investment in green generation, batteries, inverters etc to provide multiple charging points (that won't trip the supply!) because some people want to save 30 minutes on fast chargers.

Yes, I would say it is, as the current members are enjoying the years of effort that previous generations put into huts. Also, it seems that EVs are part of the future, so a lot more will have them.

All huts are different, but I assume for some installing a charging point is not a major hurdle, for others it is. 

But a good starting point is asking the questions.

...which benefit everyone using the hut, not just a small minority.

"Also, it seems that EVs are part of the future, so a lot more will have them."

True, I just think that a sufficient number of members would need to have them to justify the cost for the club. 

In that case they can choose to charge up whilst enjoying a relaxing coffee on the way home.

You seem to expect others to find answers whilst you can only see problems.

How familiar are you with an EV's range? The chances are that getting from home to hut is likely to use most of the battery capacity, unless you are local to the hut.

As for the issue of club members paying for a minority, that's one of the cost choices that need to be made. But 'if you build it, they will come'. EVs are the future. We all need to start encouraging their use.

I've been active in working on removing several Southern North Sea Gas complexes (Loggs, Viking) and North Sea Platforms like the Brents, Ninnian North, Heather and Dunlin. As well as this I worked on Thanet windfarm in the construction phase. 

Would any Clubs be willing buy my carbon emission reduction credits for cold hard cash ?

I've been working on the removal of several Southern North Sea Gas complexes (Loggs, Viking) and North Sea Platforms like the Brents, Ninnian North, Heather and Dunlin. As well as this I worked on Thanet windfarm in the construction phase. 

Would any Clubs be willing buy my carbon emission reduction credits for cold hard cash ?

That is rather unfair.

There is problem, climate change. I belive it is anthropogenic, so we all in the global north are part of it.

I supplied a couple  of existing solutions and asked if anyone knows of any others.

I doubt, but give Ms Swift a call, as it would seem if you are rich enough, you can do what the hell you want, and pay some other people to take the pain. <I am dead against offsetting, in case of any doubt >

The minority issue is more than that. With one charger who gets priority? If a system is installed that profits by feeding into the grid, makes the hut green and allows charging as well that's great. That wasn't the reasoning Godwin gave though.

As someone mentioned, one might not be enough...

It's not just a problem for huts; it's a problem with EVs that needs to be addressed. Fossil fuel refill takes a minute or so  EV 'refill' takes much, much longer...

My direct actions through work are making more of an impact on reducing Carbon Emissions than knobheads slinging about Orange Paint, I can happily report I was part of a project in November to remove a gas extraction topside and weld on guide pins for the installation of a Carbon Capture unit for Total using the existing redundant gas wells.

I assume you are paid for this, or is this part of an altruistic project?

TBH, I do not understand what it is you are doing, I am guessing scrapping end of life oil rigs, but could be wrong, so will accept that it is a great thing for the environment.

The thing I do not agree with though is the offsetting.

I assume people in the past will have perhaps thought Rosa Parkes, Kinder Tresspassers, Suffragettes etc Knobheads

You mean like everyone travelling to the hut should use public transport to avoid all that car CO2?

If they can, it would be nice, and with £2 bus fares, perhaps a possibility.

But for sure more car sharing is a possibility, maybe using UKC lifts and partners, and club websites. Obviously this will involve some inconvenience to people.

The solution that was offered was perfectly viable, sadly you appear to think that getting to your beet a bit earlier is more important.

You say

But later

So is inconvenience tolerable or not? If you suggest people make the time to divert to pick folk up on the way, why does spending half an hour to charge a car get ruled out in your head as too impractical? Have you actually thought about anything you're saying?

You seem to be proudly patting yourself on the back here for "asking the questions", as if you're the first one to think of all this bloody obvious stuff that you have no answers for.

P.S. The CO2 from lighting. Got a number yet?

Depends what you mean by local. You could easily drive a couple of hours to the hut, do local stuff from there and charge on the way home? 

No, I just acknowledged that some people may find it inconvenient, and prefer not to. I car share whenever I can and take public transport. For me it is viable.

Are you my dad ? Do you walk around the house shouting “save it!”

I sense a certain cognitive distance from the people who will suffer the impacts of Climate Change.

As you were, toodle pip.

What number did you come up with for the lighting?

If you'd rather flounce than give it a moment's thought, then you'll forgive us for being slow to thank you for your contribution.

Loads of EVs in Norway. Feels around 50% now from general observation. I can't think of any huts with charging points. People typically charge en route so that there is enough for when in the mountains. We seem to manage here and I imagine we like to relax and have a beer as much as anyone else. 

Sean Lock said it best youtube.com/watch?v=AD5WDanuLWM&

As pointed out multiple times above, the main climate impact is due to multiple people driving hundreds of miles to use the hut for a weekend. Installing solar PV and a GSHP isn't going to mitigate that (and if anything a heat pump is less suitable for many club huts as they are often unoccupied for long periods and don't need heating at a constant temperature). 

This is the same kind of thing as people that berate those that eat meat and go on a short haul flight once a year while they live in a large house with 3 children, a dog, 2 cars and drive to their holiday home in Cornwall 6 times a year.

I agree with most of what you've said but also, many huts are kept at a consistent temperature (around 16 degrees) to avoid damp, if I'm not mistaken. That has a significant energy demand in old poorly insulated buildings in mountain areas and I don't think it's completely pointless to try and learn more about it.

Yes - transport is a problem, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't look at all aspects (even if they're perceived to be minor ones).

And huts are more likely than the average home to be older (stone or solid wall) buildings and have planning constraints like being in national parks or AONBs etc. So it's probably trickier. Not saying they don't need to do anything!! but we should be more pragmatic about what hut owners haven't yet done

I probably wouldn't, since drip charging overnight at, say, 2kW on a domestic tariff is going to be both more cost efficient and more time efficient than using public infrastructure.

You might be. Depends on your definition of many. I've never stayed in one where any more than frost protection is left on.

You are mistaken

Neither Grange, or Ynys, are heated in this way, I have had some very cold nights to demonstrate this! 

I don't think the Oread does this either.

It seems I'm mistaken - fair enough!

Did some more thinking about this and yeah, I reckon if you ignore transport (which you really shouldn't) I'll use a fair net percentage less energy in a hut than if I stayed at home. The numbers are blown away by getting there though, obvs. 

And a follow up to pre-empt the "yeah but they could still put solar panels on the roof" point:

Clubs won't get access to the same tariffs as your house, and those only really work if you use a lot of the energy rather than export it all, which is not how a hut would work. They would be investing in solar panels on the same terms as any other commercial installation. At that point, if you want to invest in solar panels on commercial terms, you have to ask whether the hut roof is the best place to site them, and it probably isn't. In the corner of someone else's huge field of panels in an an ideal location with the right aspect and bulk installation costs and with a grid connection that can cope and with bigger, much more efficient inverters is probably going to be a better deal financially as well as environmentally. But that doesn't stop people who haven't thought about it pointing at the roof and asking why there aren't PV cells there.

Oh go on, I'll play devil's advocate then...

They potentially use less electricity than the average home so "iff" (if and only if) they had a decent capacity battery, one of these cheap used EV batteries promised for years will be available (but I've never seen one) charged by a solar array, their lights and maybe some anti frost heating might be supplied by that, which in a remote hut could protect lighting and phones from power cuts. Wouldn't power electric showers, hot water, cooking though.

But I'd want that battery to be in an out building or somewhere a lithium battery fire couldn't burn down the hut!

I also can't think of a single mountain hut which gets a lot of sunshine. Always nestled deep in the bottom of shady valleys, they probably only get a few hours of direct sunshine in the middle of June.

I would love to know exactly what the energy use profile of a relatively busy hut like the Don Whillans or a large one like the Count House would be, though. That shouldn't be hard to monitor, or expensive.

An enormous array of mirrors covering a few hundred acres on the hillsides to form a concentrated solar collector focused on the hut. This vast collector array will also distract from the forest of phone masts and improve the area.

One weekend in June for an hour or two around midday it might become warm and pleasant outside the hut.

I can see the argument for using it for the low but constant load stuff, which is an extremely small portion of the whole, but there are probably better big-picture things you could do with the funds instead.

If you did install a battery to try to provide for the hut's usage, how would you size it? Do you have it small, overflowing and exporting nearly all the time, and then instantly empty and basically an irrelevance when everyone gets down off the hill? 

Or do you have it big enough to store and use enough energy to make a difference at peak time so it would be pretty significant and yet spend most of its life sitting fully charged and idle? Installing such a system seems best kind of a waste and at worst arguably an ecological crime in itself.

Or (most sensible imo) do you size it to store what you can generate in a single day, then when that's used it's used? Given that you'd only cycle it on the weekends in the summer when it's been sunny, that's never going to pay for itself.

Or do you set it to export at peak times through the week when the hut's empty? Well, that's offsetting and the OP will spit his dummy out if you do that. And again, if you're investing members' cash in doing semi-speculative stuff like that, on commercial not domestic terms remember, what's the benefit of doing it at the hut and not just as part of a bigger scheme?

I can see them being installed, but I fear the reasons behind it will be that committees have got bored of walking people repetitively through these thought processes rather than actually making the best choices for the planet.

irt myrddinmuse:

A quick skim through some AGM papers tells me a few medium to large huts spend of order 5-7k on their electricity bill per year. You can bet very little of that is used when the sun is out, and almost all when people do their showering and cooking. Don't forget to account for standing charges if you do any maths based on those numbers.

Edit: https://app.electricitymaps.com/ 75g today! We're getting there.....

Cheers! I'd never seen that map, very interesting. 

46g now. 

Gridwatch is another one you might like, but it's a bit less competitive...