In 1990 the Woking Borough Council embarked on a series of sustainable energy projects designed to save energy and cut emmissions. The Council has established the UK’s first small scale combined heat and power system, the largets intefrated photovoltaic installation in the U.K., the first fuel cell system, and the first public/private joint venture Energy Services Company.

By 2001 the Council had cut its energy usage by 43%, carbon dioxide emissions by 71%, Nitrogen oxide emissions by 68%, and sulpher dioxide emissions by 73%. In addition, water consumption has been cut by 43% and the Council’s energy and water budgets cut by one third.

Besides using renewable energy, a major key to the Council’s success has been to get off the national grid and wire its own system. Locally supplied energy combined with use of the heat created in generating electricity to heat buildings can be as much as 90 percent efficient. The system of central powerstations and a national grid can be as little as 22% efficient due to the wasted heat energy and the extra electric power needed to get the power through the grid.

The Woking Council’s next objective is to wire the entire borough–40,000 households–to similar systems, with a goal of reducing CO2 emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2090.

Clean, renewable, and local power systems are bound to be central to a Green economy. Woking is showing us how to do it.