The Association has a small team of core staff based at its offices in Victoria, London.
Graham Meeks, Director of the Association, reports to an executive board that is representative of various constituencies of membership.
The Association also has a high-profile presidency role. Its current President is Lord Whitty, former Environment Minister and Chair of Consumer Focus, the consumer rights organisation whose remit includes protection and fairness for consumers of energy.
The CHPA is however primarily driven by its members, over 100 organisations with an interest in the development, delivery and use of CHP, district heating and sustainable energy services in the UK. Members participate through a series of forums that meet 2-3 times a year; the CHPA encourages its members to play an active and vocal role in these discussions to ensure that their interests are best represented. The forums are:
Forums addressing cross-cutting issues:
- Strategy Forum – looking at strategic questions such as positioning and communication of CHP, district heating and sustainable energy services
- Distributed Energy Services Forum – working to establish the conditions for a vibrant, low-carbon energy services market, including consideration of the regulatory and incentives framework for distributed electricity and network heat supply
Market-facing forums:
- Industrial Forum – the platform for discussion of issues impacting on the industrial and utility scale CHP sector, for example the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and Climate Change Levy
- Buildings Forum – focusing on CHP at all scales and district heating in the built environment, considering issues such as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme and the Code for Sustainable Homes
Forums addressing technology:
- Micro CHP Forum – a place for discussions among the growing micro-CHP sector, acting as a bridge between the CHP and microgeneration industry and policy environments
- Network Heat Forum – the forum for technical, regulatory and other aspects of heat supply
- Biomass and Alternative Fuels Forum – a group addressing emerging policy, technical and regulatory issues around the use of renewable and carbon neutral CHP and district heating such as biomass, waste and other recovered fuels
From time to time, the CHPA sets up further working groups to address specific issues or developments. If there is a specific issue that you would like the CHPA to consider, please contact us.