Home Energy Handbook ‘drop-in’ sessions at CAT, 17th July 2012

Join us for one of three Home Energy Handbook ‘drop-in’ sessions
17th July 2012 (4-5pm, 5-6pm and 6-7pm).

Garden Room, the WISE building, Centre for Alternative Technology.

Each session is the same, lasts approximately an hour, and includes a brief talk, Q and A and some ‘browse and chat’ time. Refreshments provided.

CAT’s new book The Home Energy Handbook has been described as a ‘manifesto’ for community energy projects but it is also a brilliant practical guide for anyone wanting to save and generate energy in the home. We are offering drop-in sessions at the Centre for Alternative Technology for those who want to find out more about the book and learn more about community energy projects. Sessions will include a brief presentation, a screening of a community energy video and question and answer time with author Allan Shepherd and Information for Action co-ordinators Kit Jones and Sam Saville. Do join us on the 17th July. Normal CAT entry prices apply; free entry if you bring proof of SY20 or SY19 residence. Discounted copies of the book will be on sale.

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Great review for The Home Energy Handbook

The Home Energy Handbook has just received a great review from Simon Brammer at Ashden. “Personally speaking, I took the book to bed with me and was so engrossed in it I didn’t put it down until 2.30am!”

“One of the things I like about the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT)’s recently published Home Energy Handbook is that it doesn’t shy away from technical terms: ‘U-values’, ‘convection’, ‘conduction’, ‘Passivhaus’. Instead, it explains the terms and why you need to understand them, illustrates them with an easily digestible diagram, and then provides the solution to your problem. It’s like the Haynes Manual to energy in your home.

Unlike other advice books I have read, it’s also empowering. It tells you about how to go it alone or better still, how to set up a community energy project and do it with your neighbours and friends – then just when you start thinking I’m not sure I could do that, provides an inspiring case study that says, Obama-like, yes you can!”

CAT won an Ashden Award two years ago for its contribution to training the army of skilled workers needed to help transition Britain to a low carbon economy. Read the full review here, find out more about the Ashden network, and then follow the link to CAT to buy the book.

Home Energy Handbook interview with Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement

Rob Hopkins interviewed me last week via Skype about The Home Energy Handbook. Have a listen to our chat here. Also check out this free download from Blue and Green Tomorrow, which features an extract of The Home Energy Handbook and many interesting articles about renewable energy from a variety of writers.

Hay festival launch for The Home Energy Handbook (my new book!)

I’m pleased to announce that CAT will be holding a launch event for my new book The Home Energy Handbook at the Hay-on-Earth stage at the Hay Festival on Thursday 7th June. The launch event will be held between 10 and 11 am. Signed copies of the book will be available in Pembertons on-site book shop immediately after the event. Please do come along and chat about the book and pick up a copy.

I’m really proud of the book. I’ve been working on it for two years, along with four other writers, Peter Harper and Paul Allen from CAT and Nicky Ison and Jarra Hicks from Community Power Agency. It’s been designed to be as friendly, approachable and good looking as possible by my colleagues at CAT Graham Preston and Annika Faircloth. It’s quite a different book for me but I hope anyone who knows about my work will embrace the energy challenges set down within it and find inspiration from it.

The Home Energy Handbook is the first practical book to cover all the key areas of home and community energy in one volume: from mapping out the great energy challenges of the 21st Century, through calculating and cutting your carbon emissions, to implementing practical energy projects in your home and community. No other book offers such a complete and dedicated guide to all the major energy saving- and renewable energy generation technologies, whilst showing how these technologies can be used to create social change.

Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement has said this about the book: “The Home Energy Handbook is a hugely valuable resource for individuals, households, communities and local and national decision makers. There is a revolution afoot in terms of how we imagine energy generation. This is its manifesto.”