Save the planet – burn gas!

Despite the billions of pounds spent promoting, subsidizing and developing renewables they still produce just 6.5 per cent of our energy needs.
According to the Renewable Energy Foundation, the UK has spent £5bn subsidizing wind farms, but we still missed the target, announced in 2001, of generating 10 per cent of our electricity from renewables by the end of the last decade. We are now supposed to be moving towards a 30 per cent target by 2020. That now looks like a long shot.

The present Government policy is to de-carbonise the electricity network through renewables and nuclear energy. However, the big fallout from the Japanese disaster is likely to be a series of delays caused by new safety reviews for that whole industry. Our first new reactor was scheduled to open in 2018 with others to follow over the ensuing decade. That was already way too late to plug our growing energy gap and now looks almost certain to be delayed further. It will also inevitably lead to additional cost.

So, solution: Burn gas. There is hundreds of years worth of ‘shale gas’ available from the US and Northern Europe as well as a healthy supply of liquefied natural gas from slightly less reliable sources, such as Russia and the Middle East, but it is there nonetheless. It is cheap (although Germany turning off its nuclear reactors will lead to price pressures) and we understand how to use it.

Cheaper
Switching direction back in favour of a, largely, gas-based system would be quick and far cheaper than trying to stimulate more renewables and build nuclear power stations. Expedience – financial and political – will probably be the winner in the race for energy security and climate change, so don’t be surprised if the ‘New Age of Gas’ could soon be upon us.

It would have to be accompanied by the already planned programme of energy efficiency upgrades of existing homes and offices to reduce consumption and so limit carbon emissions. Although gas is not a zero carbon, or even a low carbon solution – it is less carbon intensive than where we are now and it has the distinct advantage of keeping the lights on. It would be a stop gap solution.

By improving insulation levels via the Green Deal funding and using more high efficiency conventional technologies, such as condensing boilers and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, we can make massive strides towards lower carbon emissions while still preserving our energy security. Renewables like solar thermal and PV can still play a role where they are possible, appropriate and cost-effective; and all of this needs to be linked together by effective and intelligent building controls.

From an HVCA perspective members using their already considerable knowledge of conventional gas-fired building services systems in tandem with better controls and more thermally efficient buildings have a far better chance of reducing the nation’s carbon emissions than anything else currently proposed; and, more importantly, we will help to keep the lights on!

However, it is not totally straightforward. With shale gas, we have to overcome the small problem of extraction, known as ‘fracking’, which uses vast amounts of water and can lead to gas coming out of your kitchen tap. There is also the requirement for carbon capture and we know how difficult and expensive that is proving to be.

And, of course, all this leads us to the inevitable conclusion that energy efficiency measures are still the best investment of all.

David Frise is head of sustainability at the HVCA whose members are committed to delivering high quality, responsible and sustainable building services solutions. dfrise@hvca.org.uk

Read more at www.hvca.org.uk

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vshioshvili/229191206/sizes/s/

Nuclear panic adds fuel to energy efficiency

The ongoing drama unfolding at the Fukushima reactor in Japan should actually strengthen the argument of those proposing an expansion of the world’s nuclear energy programmes. The fact that it has had the opposite effect defies logic.

An outdated plant, built in the early 60s, almost survived a direct hit from an earthquake thousands of times more powerful than anything experienced ever in most parts of the world and the subsequent loss of power caused by a tsunami. All the modern plants did survive unscathed and Fukushima did not go into total meltdown – the situation is bad there, but it could have been very considerably worse.

The worldwide panic that ensued is nuts. Germany shut down ALL of its nuclear reactors – why? It even led to a new word permeating websites: “Angst-lust”, which captures the sense of panic beautifully. Are they expecting an earthquake and tsunami? Also, we no longer build nuclear reactors like those of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima.

If this isolated and exceptional incident delays or cancels planned nuclear energy developments – what is the likely outcome? China will abandon its nuclear programme and build more coal-fired power stations instead. There is plenty of coal around, it is just very bad for the environment and 3,000 Chinese coal miners die every year – that makes it a lot more dangerous than nuclear.

Risks
How do we weigh these risks? Thousands of dead miners; catastrophic global warming and/or the lights going out – against continued nuclear expansion. How about a third way: A truly global programme of energy efficiency? Governments must go further and faster to tackle our energy waste as that is the only option that is technologically easy, risk free and cheap. It also means a key role for the building services engineering industry and HVCA members in particular.

Fukushima might create the right strategy for the wrong reasons. It is almost impossible for the general public to judge just how risky nuclear is – we don’t have the facts and we don’t live in an earthquake zone. We do know, however, how astonishingly expensive nuclear power is. We probably can justify nuclear on safety grounds, but that probably means we can’t justify it on cost – the only alternative is a massive programme of energy efficiency. It is the only thing that we can start now and afford to finish.

David Frise is head of sustainability at the HVCA whose members are committed to delivering high quality, responsible and sustainable building services solutions. dfrise@hvca.org.uk

Read more at www.hvca.org.uk

http://www.theenvironmentsite.org/nuclear-panic-adds-fuel-energy-efficiency/

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Being grateful for small mercies

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) has received a less than ecstatic welcome from many quarters – the tariffs are widely regarded as too small to deliver the dramatic market shift the Government is looking for.

Come on – let’s get real for a minute.

Look at what has just happened to Feed-in Tariffs. The sound of squealing brakes is almost deafening as PV projects over 50kW are being pulled up short. Small residential projects are unaffected, but the big investments were pouring into solar farms and large ‘rent your roof’ schemes, suddenly, sustainability doesn’t look quite so appealing to the financial sector.

The FiTs powering large PV projects were offering an annual return of over 10 per cent – it looked to good to be true and it was. It is not hard to see why venture capitalists were pouring into this market and why they are now turning tail and stampeding back out again. This is all to do with economics and nothing to do with saving the planet – we need to be clear about this.

And, against that backdrop, take a look at the RHI. The Government needs to cut the deficit; there is nothing left in the public coffers and, yet, it is proposing to spend £860m of public money to try and create a £4.5bn market in solar thermal, biomass and heat pumps.

We should be grateful for small mercies and we also need to respond. Air source heat pumps are not included in the first round of RHI tariffs, but that is only because a perfectly good technology has not been delivering on its promise. Only 13 per cent of the systems trialled by the Energy Saving Trust matched expectations – due partly to poor commissioning; incorrect sizing; bad installation and confused user operation.

If we can get this sort of thing right, the RHI offers a huge opportunity for our sector. Let’s take the carrot, say ‘thank you’ and make it work for us, our businesses and our customers.

For full details of the RHI click here.

David Frise is head of sustainability at the HVCA whose members are committed to delivering high quality, responsible and sustainable building services solutions. dfrise@hvca.org.uk

Read more at www.hvca.org.uk

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/4366334742

Fields are for food, not solar panels

The Government’s decision to review the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) scheme is one of those classic cases of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Having waited years for incentive schemes to help kickstart the renewables market while casting envious glances towards Germany, Portugal, and Spain; less than a year into our FiT programme it is all up in the air again. This breaks the Golden Rule of not moving the goalposts once you have put an incentive in place. However, there are mitigating circumstances here.

The FIT scheme was not intended to be an alternative to the equities markets, but to stimulate the generation of household renewable power. Climate Change Minister Chris Huhne is, rightly, concerned that the subsidies are, instead, making their way into the pockets of so-called “shrewd investors”. He has fast-tracked a review of the scheme and it looks as if arrays over 50kW will be made less attractive to investors after April next year.

This move is arbitrary, but is probably right if it stops people building solar farms in fields. We have so much roof space available we should be using that first.

Poverty
Food prices are on the rise and we are not able to feed the seven billion people in the world; let alone considering the additional two billion who will be around in 2050 (the equivalent of two Indias). The G20 countries are becoming increasingly concerned about food security – global poverty rather puts renewable energy arguments in the shade. So let’s keep the fields for growing food and fill up otherwise useless roof space with PV.

However, the Government now has to be very careful that it does not put the renewable energy market into reverse. More than 22,000 installations have registered for FiTs since their launch last April – hugely increasing our installed renewable energy capacity. The majority of the registered installations are individual homes and 95 per cent of them are using photovoltaic (PV) panels.

It is a tricky one for the Government, but whatever decision is taken it must communicate clearly where the strategy is going. The fact there is a review at all is increasing uncertainty about the whole FiT scheme. This has already driven some investors away and put the brakes on the smaller individual systems too. What the industry needs is a quick decision to remove the uncertainty.

The HVCA will be keeping a close eye on this and will continue to chase down answers from government and transmit them to members.

David Frise is head of sustainability at the HVCA whose members are committed to delivering high quality, responsible and sustainable building services solutions. dfrise@hvca.org.uk

Read more at www.hvca.org.uk

Picture Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/knowmybackyard/2394376192