Green grant

East Midlands Renewable Energy (EMRE) has received a £3,000 innovation support grant from the Sustainable Construction innovation Network (iNet) to help develop its renewable-energy and heating demonstration projects.

The Derby-based company, which specialises in the integrated control of renewable-energy systems, will use the funding to finance its Sustainable Housing Innovation Network of Excellence (SHINE) and the SHINE-Zero Carbon (SHINE-ZC) demonstration programmes.

Vincent Smedley, technical director of EMRE, said: ‘Our business is currently focused on solar thermal, solar PV [photovoltaic], air sourced heat pumps and season thermal storage technologies. SHINE-ZC will be the East Midlands’ first zero-carbon social housing demonstrator and illustrates how an integrated “whole-system” approach can lead to truly sustainable dwellings at a realistic cost.’

The iNet grant will allow EMRE to exploit two of the technologies that the company has been developing with Loughborough University for SHINE-ZC.

The first is a thermal store system that stores heat energy generated during the summer to be released during the winter. The second is the whole building environmental control system that controls heating, domestic hot water and electrical demand systems.