2013 - the year of gas

 

The Energy Bill was the clearest signal yet that this Government has given up on energy efficiency, says B&ES head of sustainability David Frise.

The Government has shown its hand and it is purely focused on increasing power generating capacity. The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement has reinforced this by supporting a new ‘dash for gas’ through the construction of 30 new gas-fired power stations and tax breaks for firms seeking to exploit our substantial reserves of shale gas this year.

Display Energy Certificates (DECs) for the private sector were already off the menu despite the industry’s deafening calls for their adoption. Private buildings will only ever have to display an Energy Performance Certificate and, to add insult to injury, DECs will only reviewed every 10 years, which makes them almost entirely meaningless.

George Osborne has pinned his flag firmly to the ‘business’ mast, and his commitment to gas is completely understandable. Thanks to years of prevarication over renewables and the sluggish development of nuclear capacity, we have little choice if we want to keep our lights on. Gas will have to generate most of our power and it will also have to keep our buildings warm.

However, the Chancellor seems to have completely missed the potential business benefits of energy efficiency. DECC’s own figures show that energy reduction could reduce the country’s electricity costs by £10bn a year between now and 2030. Simple energy efficiency measures, like upgrading heating or increasing insulation, could almost wipe out the expected annual rise in average consumer energy bills of £175. Lots of good political capital in that…but clearly this is not eye catching enough for Mr Osborne.

Do the opposite
The decision to drop plans to roll out DECs to the private sector almost precisely coincided with the publication of an authoritative report advising the Government to do the exact opposite.Produced by Jones Lang LaSalle and the Better Buildings Partnership, the report concluded that “only by monitoring the measured carbon emissions of buildings could the government and industry succeed in cutting emissions from commercial buildings”.

“We have shown that there is little or no correlation between a building’s design (as measured by EPCs) and its actual consumption,” it added.

Researchers compared the actual energy consumption of two offices, one with a good EPC rating – its theoretical energy efficiency - and one with a poor rating. Bizarrely, it was the lower rated building that actually performed better – it was 66% more efficient! This confirms what most industry observers already knew – EPCs are hardly worth the paper they are printed on.

They also analysed the performance of 200 office buildings in London and compared the actual figures with what was shown on their EPCs. The result prompted Nick Hogg, senior consultant in Jones Lang LaSalle’s sustainability team, to state: “EPCs are not sufficient to deliver the government’s targets to ‘de-carbonise’ the UK’s built environment.

“Our findings emphasise the importance of measuring and achieving reductions in actual energy consumption in buildings. In doing so, we present the case for the introduction of mandatory Display Energy Certificates (DECs) for commercial property,” added Hogg.

The report also said BBP’s members have cut their CO₂ emissions by 8% in the last two years and saved themselves £4 million in energy costs in the process.

The WWF has also weighed into the debate. Policy officer Zoe Leader blogged that energy efficiency was the ‘timeless classic’ of energy policy making – because it is easy to ignore. “Control over energy bills…is even more important for the more vulnerable members of our society,” she said.

On top of this, important changes to Part L of the Building Regulations are delayed. A further 20% reduction in emissions from commercial buildings was proposed by DCLG, but this seems to have hit the same brick wall at the Treasury that also torpedoed ‘consequential improvements’ under an onslaught of negative publicity headed by the Daily Mail.

The Government has been accused of sending out mixed messages about energy. I would argue their message isn’t mixed at all…their foot is on the gas.