Is the government's strategy to encourage the installation of renewable energy components on new build developements failing?
The conclusion, as a consequence of loop-holes built into the legislation, appears to be a resounding yes!
Quite a while back the government introduced a new set of building regulations and these have now become enshrined in planning law. A minimum of 10% of the energy consumption of any new build must be provided via renewable energy means. At the time there was a great deal of consternation amongst developers and architects alike - it looked as if it would mean a significant increase in costs on any development - and hence a hefty premium on the cost of any new property.
Speaking to some developers a few weeks ago, I asked them about this problem. Their response ....... we just chuck in more insulation, put in low energy lighting, and we can meet the renewables requirement.
I was not quite sure at the time that I understood just how this could work, but this article from a town planner in Newcastle expains thing quite clearly.
"If green energy measures are to be included in the building, such as energy efficient lighting and extra insulation, this will reduce the carbon footprint of the building, thereby reducing the 10% requirement."
"It is usually more cost effective to cut the energy consumption of a building than to provide renewable equipment. "
So the renewables requirement can be met by ignoring renewables and by simply reducing the overall energy consumption of a new build. Not a bad thing in itself, but I think certainly not what was originally intended.
Nice piece of legislation or what? Swiss cheese with loop-holes that big you can drive an artic through!
Addendum:
Just to prevent any confusion, reducing a new build's projected carbon footprint by 10% does NOT then mean that only 10% of the remaining energy consumption has then to be met using renewables. Because of this loop-hole, the use of additional insulation and low energy lighting etc. means that the renewables requirement for new builds, in some cases, has been met without using any renewables at all! (i.e. The exact opposite of what the new regulations were trying to achieve)
Addendum 2 (from Junkk Male):
Saw this and thought of you:
Our group has been working on design/construction of
low energy/affordable housing units and finally we
have produced a 3BR house protorype that costs almost
half the price of similar size house on the market. We
are happy to share our findings with you.
Kind regards,
Dr M Hedman
SolXO Ltd.
United Kingdom
8 comments:
The principle of prevention being better than cure should be paramount as we are on a climatically tenuous timescale.
So while anything, anywhere, is better than nothing, it's only if you have nothing better to do.
Hence prioritising the big wins should be the one and only mission for government, big business and legislation. And, frankly, the media.
So I cannot for the life of me figure out why we have MPs getting excited about 4x4s, carrier bags and packaging when such as industrial efficiencies (like pumps) and home insulation should be the top of every list.
I rather suspect that it is the huge expansion of departments that is to blame, as these sods all need something to do to justify their salaries and gold-plated pensions, so they are all jockeying for position, profile, money and attention.
The losers are, of course, the people and the planet.
Dave,
If I understand the original post correctly, then the 'loophole' is actually a good thing, because the high cost of renewables is giving an incentive to lower the carbon footprint of the building first, and then supplying 10% of that lower footprint as renewable.
To give a worked example using my house, which I will pretend is new for this discussion. The first year we were there, we
used 25000 kWh of gas and electricity. If this was new, then it would have required 2500 kWh per year of renewables, leaving 22500 kWh of 'not renewables'.
Last year we used 14000 kWh of gas and electricity. If this was new then it would have required 1400 kWh of renewables, leaving 12600 kWh of 'not renewables'. So making the building use less energy has saved 9900 kWh of 'not renewable', for the price of supplying 1100 kWh less of 'renewables.'
So it seems to be that this is providing a strong incentive to do the simple and sensible things first. Often legislation can have perverse consequences (such as Scottish and Southern downgrading some hydro-electric plant to 20 MW in order to qualify for the renewables obligation). However, in this case it seems to be working in the right direction.
Lawrence
Thank you for the clarification Lawrence. I am so glad we have a regular reader/contributor with your qualifications (and appreciation of trying to communicate a balanced view on all sides of an issue in clear terms) to feed back when necessary.
I think we might need to create a feature soon, with your permission, on the main site: The House of Lawrence! As a textbook example of what can, should and has been done domestically in simple to grasp, clearly multi-ROI positive terms, it would be a winner!
The S&S fact is less than special, though, and will hopefully be addressed pronto. It would be great one day to find the guy(s), like the one who wrote the famous memo about the Ford Pinto, and nail 'em for putting profit before planet in the name of 'green'.
I do actually have a website idea to create just such a rogue’s gallery in the archives. Must dig it out.
Lawrence, that is exactly what I understood the regulations to mean when they were first drafted.
However, that is NOT what is being, and has been, applied.
If the projected energy consumption of your 'new' house was 14000 KWh, then the regulations state that 1400 KWh of this energy consumption comes from renewable energy sources such as photovoltaics, GCHP, wind turbines etc.
However, by increasing levels of insulation and by installing low energy lighting etc. and reducing the property's projected energy requirement to 12600KWh, then you are deemed to have met the legislation by NOT installing any renewable energy generation at all!
The regulations were supposed to force developers to think about installing renewable energy generation capabilities (or using local CHP or local large scale GSHPs etc.) on all new properties. In fact it is simply forcing them to use better levels of insulation. OK, a definite benefit for the environment, but not really encouraging the uptake of domestic scale renewable energy one single iota!
n.b. There are also some whispers about major housing developments that are also using offsetting schemes as part of their 10% renewables requirement. I will dig around a little and see if this can be substantiated.
Boy, with you two guys on the case there's a slim chance we might actually burrow to the actualities.
An engineer and a scientist, with me, an ex-both (Vet and Civ Eng. degree, drop-out and 'only if I promised not to build anything', respectively) as 'voice of the not too sure brigade' moderator.
What is highlighted here is just how darn tricky it is getting to what are the facts and, once you have them, what they mean.
I know you two guys are singing from the same hymnbook (well, most of the time), but if with your abilities to analyse and interpret data you can arrive at two pretty different takes on this, think what the rest of us are going to be feeling!
The 10% renewables policay was originally pushed by the London Borough of Merton (see www.themertonrule.org). Central government legislation means that local planning guidelines that insist on it are legal.
That website explains what they call the energy triangle: first design the building so that less energy is needed (e.g good insulation), then ensure that energy is used as efficiently as possible (e.g. low energy lamps) and finally supply 10% of the calculated requirement as renewables. This has to be on site renewables. The 10% is calculated on the basis of CO2 emissions, which has the advantage of being fair and also discouraging the fitting of electric heating (except ground source heat pumps!).
Well, that is what is supposed to happen so that the 10% requiment ends up leveraging a whole host of other improvements.
As the "Merton Rule" is to do with locally-implemented planning policy, other authorities may well have different rules. Dave, do you know of any developments where there should be 10% renewables, but there isn't because someone has counted e.g. insulation as renewable?
Lawrence
For what it is worth, one of the speakers at teh Guardian Climate Change Summit was Adrian Hewitt of Merton, talking on just this issue:
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatesummit/page/0,,2124436,00.html
(See my post on the GCCS if the link doesn't work)
Lawrence,
As the lady stated in the article - "proof of renewable energy sources in development schemes is being requested more often".
That clearly implies that it has not always been so, and that reflects exactly what developers that I have spoken to have said. By reducing the carbon footprint by means of additional insulation etc. they, presumably with the agreement of the local planning office and/or building inspectors, are circumventing the requirements of the Merton Rule and building, in some cases, without any renewables component at all.
I cannot give you specific examples, I am simply reporting just what several developers have said to me over recent months; that the rule is circumventable without any real difficulty or penalty to themselves. The report by the newcastle planning officer emphasises just why they choose this option if they can get away with it, because renewables on any development are very expensive.
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