Woking

Woking is a large town and civil parish that shares its name with the surrounding local government district, located in the west of Surrey, South East England. It functions as a dormitory town of the London commuter belt and is located 23 miles (37 km) south west of Charing Cross in central London. Woking town itself, excluding the surrounding district, has a population of 62,796, and the civil parish, which covers part of the urban area inclusive of Sheerwater and Knaphill, has a population of 30,403. It should be noted that this population should not be confused with the local government district (the borough of Woking), which has an approximate population of 90,700 (2006 estimate).

Energy policy
Woking council is one of country's leaders in adopting greener energy technologies. Several combined heat and power stations provide district heating and electricity, and electricity is also provided by a combination of hydrogen fuel cells and solar cells dispersed throughout the borough. These are linked via an innovative private electricity distribution system operating completely off the public power grid.

In order to do this the local government laid new power lines to all locations on the Woking sustainable community energy system (due to Department of Trade and Industry regulations). Should the public power grid fail, central Woking would continue to have an energy supply.

The cost for providing this is approximately UK£0.01/kWh less than for public electricity. It has been reported that the borough saves UK£974,000 a year in energy costs if the installation costs are ignored. By March 2004 the initiatives had also cut the borough's carbon emissions by 17.24%, and those of the council by 77.4%.

Places, projects and networks

 * Woking Local Agenda 21
 * Agenda 21 on 'Window On Woking' community web site

Related Wikipedia content

 * Energy policy of the United Kingdom