feed in tariffs coming to the UK?

From out of nowhere, twice in one week, there have been indications that a feed in tariff is on the way. First, at Tuesday’s PRASEG (Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group) meeting, BERR and DEFRA both hinted that a feed in tariff would replace the renewables obligation for installations under 50kW. Then on Thursday at Think08, Hillary Benn delivered the same message (thanks to Phil for pointing that out).

So how soon might this happen? Probably not as quick as we’d like as it’s likely to require a change to the RO legislation. But until then hopefully small generators will be able to console themselves with double ROCs.

using new schemes to decarbonise existing buildings

If you build to Passivhaus standard, there’s no point in putting in a wet heating system. In fact, the key to the economics of Passivhaus design is that a conventional heating system is rendered redundant: you’re supposed to use the resulting savings to help fund the efficiency measures. Instead of a boiler and radiators you might only need a small electric heating coil in your mechanical ventilation system.

Level 6 of the Code for Sustainable Homes is modelled on the Passivhaus standard. As a result, until the Code changes, you’re likely to see more and more developers trying to move towards electric heating systems. You might argue that given the quantities of electricity we’re talking about (15 kWh/m².yr), even if you source the electricity from the grid, it’s no carbon catastrophe. Unless you consider the bigger picture.

Making new buildings zero carbon is an excellent requirement, but by focusing our efforts (and a hell of a lot of money) on ratcheting down the heat demand from new buildings, we throw away the huge opportunity of using new developments to slash emissions from existing stock.

Think08

Nick and I were kindly asked by Phil Clark to speak at this year’s Think08. We thought long and hard and decided that I’ll be representing Carbon Limited (and Fontenergy) at the event while Nick schmoozes in the background. So I’ll be the Face Man to his B.A. so to speak. Or the Magnum to his Robin Masters. The Buck to his Twiki. Or… whatever, you see where I’m going with this.

Phil’s put us in a great stream at the conference, speaking alongside Robert Kyriakides (fellow blogger and the man behind solar thermal company Genersys), Richard Shennan from Fulcrum (with his effortless cool, top ‘tache, and unbeatable Basque cooking), and Angus Norman from EDF (who I’ve never met but am looking forward to meeting).

I’ll be talking about the effect of the upcoming regs on the way we generate our energy (i.e. the extent to which regs will push us from a centralised generation model to a distributed one and what the implications are). I’ve been doing quite a lot of work in this area with one of the big developers, though I haven’t written much about it on the blog.

Come on down, watch the talk, and say hi.

 

heat meters are a no-brainer

At work I’m helping a large housing association upgrade their existing heating networks to save carbon and reduce costs to occupants. There are various steps to take: upgrading boilers, re-insulating distribution pipework, considering CHP, and so on. But the single most effective thing you can do on these schemes is to install heat meters.

Doing some background research, I rang up the very friendly and forthcoming Dick Bradford, the driving force behind the hugely successful biomass community heating schemes in Barnsley, to ask him what effect installing heat meters had had on his schemes. He told me that following the installation of heat meters, heat consumption dropped by 50%. I was gobsmacked.

local authorities must lead the way to low carbon

My first day back in London and I’ve spent the morning schmoozing at a publication launch just off the Mall. Five minutes out of my cattle stall and I’m already moving and shaking. It was an event to publicise the TCPA’s new document, Community Energy: Urban Planning for a Low Carbon Future, and it attracted quite a crowd including MPs Nick Hurd and Keith Hill.

During the presentations and panel discussion, most people in the room seemed to feel that local authorities have the pivotal role to play in the creation of low carbon distributed energy networks. I totally agree, but I think we were missing part of the picture.

CHP and SAP - part II

I’ve been spending some quality time with spreadsheets and have an update on the way building regs for housing treats CHP. It’s not as simple as I thought here, although the result is similar. The incorrect method I wrote about a few weeks back is still in use, but it’s different from what’s happening in SAP 2005. Here’s a breakdown:

Come on you blues

Martin at isite has got in touch to urge us to wear blue on Earth Day (April 20th) to signify opposition to new coal.

We’re with you, Martin. Time to break out the body paint.

Communal Wind Turbines and SAP

Following on from here, I have been chasing BRE & CLG to clarify the situation. The sorry response is that no-one was really aware of the potential implications of this piece of policy. So it’s official, at this point it is not possible to include the power output from communal on-site wind turbines, even where connected via a private wire network.

I have been tasked by Ted King, Head of Building Regs at CLG, to formally write to all stakeholders highlighting the issues so that they can be considered (not necessarily resolved) during the revisions for SAP 2009/10 for the next Part L update. The good news is that this work is already underway to be ready for the consultation process in January 2009. So, no comfort for my client, but perhaps others will be able to avoid this.

For what it’s worth, I also contacted the BWEA to check whether they were aware of the situation, and no they were not but obviously very interested to make sure that their industry is not penalised in this manner in the future.

…the weird turn pro

If you take a look at our URL you’ll see we’ve moved from the wordpress address over to carbonlimited.org. Things have been going pretty well here at the blog and we thought we might tart ourselves up a bit in the interests of professionalism.

I understand from two London mates who just visited me in Italy that if we want to be really trendy then we need to get perms. So now that we’ve got our own URL, that’s probably next.

All the old links should redirect so no need to update.

60% by 2050? Only if we address existing housing

Today Lord Turner’s panel met for the first time to discuss a concrete strategy for fufilling the UK’s commitment to reducing emissions by 60% by 2050 (and to consider upping the target to 80%). With around a third of UK emissions coming from housing, this sector will inevitably play a key role in their strategy. You might think we could rely on the Code for Sustainable Homes to get us there - after all, if all homes from 2016 are Code level 6 then there will be no net emissions from new housing. But unfortunately new homes are only a small part of the problem.

The graph below illustrates the predicted emissions from the housing sector by age of housing stock for the period 2002 to 2050. It shows that the overwhelming proportion of emissions will continue to come from houses built before 2002. The dotted lines represent the emissions from all housing required to achieve a 60% and 80% reduction in emissions vs 1990 levels. Emissions from each band decreases over time due to demolition.

Figure 1. Carbon emissions from housing sector by age of housing stock, 2002 - 2050