'Organic' air is bad for you

Poor air quality is killing more people in the UK than smoking and alcohol combined; accounting for 29,000 premature deaths every year, according to Public Health England.

The recent heatwave has focused attention on the effects of outdoor pollutants and has exacerbated already serious problems with transport emissions, but there is also a major problem INSIDE buildings.

Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) may be responsible for the loss of over 200,000 ‘healthy life years’ in Britain, according to a new study published by the Finnish National Institute for Health & Welfare(THL). Its research appears to prove the link between exposure to indoor pollutants and cardiovascular disease, as well as a number of other health hazards leading to reduced life expectancy.

57% of the total burden relates to cardiovascular diseases, 23% to lung cancer, 12% to asthma and the remaining 8% relates to other respiratory conditions, the Institute reported, adding that changing the way buildings are ventilated could reduce the overall impact of indoor air pollution by as much as 38%.

Making this link to the health impact on building occupants is timely because of the UK government’s current legal tangle with the European Union over our appalling record on air quality.

Fines
The UK has been in breach of Europe’s air pollution limits since 2010, leading the European Commission and environmental lawyers to launch separate legal actions that carry fines of up to £300m a year.  Lawyers acting for the European Commission said the UK's failure to act on air quality was “perhaps the longest running infringement of EU law in history”. 

Just as in the 70s and 80s when government health advisers started to recognise the need to act over the impact of smoking on cancer and heart disease, so today we see growing evidence of the health impact of airborne particles and other gaseous pollutants.

However, there still seems to be a perception that air brought into a building via ‘natural’ ventilation is, in some way, organic – and therefore wholesome; while anything processed by a ventilation fan or through a filter is the equivalent of genetically modified crops and to be treated with suspicion.

This myth really needs to be dispelled, particularly in the light of the UK’s newly acquired status as the dirty air champion of Europe. The growing risk of outdoor pollutants entering buildings is adding to the problem posed by the various threats that already exist indoors including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found in carpets, paints etc.

People spend more than 90% of their lives indoors; often in sedentary occupations and with the windows open because the building is overheated.

Harmful
The situation has been exacerbated over the last two decades by the drive to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, which has involved making them more airtight. Sealing up buildings puts pressure on ventilation systems to dilute rising levels of CO₂ and replenish oxygen while simultaneously trying to prevent the rising number of harmful external pollutants from finding their way inside. This is very hard to achieve ‘naturally’.

It is not surprising that the European Commission is putting pressure on the UK. Its Environment Committee has revealed that poor air quality is responsible for 360,000 premature deaths across the continent.  Many airborne particles are precisely the right size for inhalation into lungs and the body has no way of removing these invaders so they go on to cause damage and disease to vital organs.

The government admits that Greater London, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire will remain in breach of EU air quality law until beyond 2030 – an extraordinary admission, but one that proves the depth and seriousness of this issue. Recently London’s Oxford Street was labelled ‘the most polluted street in the world’ due to extraordinarily high levels of traffic pollution. New studies have linked nitrogen oxide (NO₂), which is often caused by petrol and diesel emissions, to higher rates of lung cancer and heart failure. 

This threat continues to grow because government policy was focused on reducing CO₂ emissions leading to the promotion of diesel vehicles. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared diesel particulates as a Class 1 carcinogen.

Challenge
In Central London the concentration of diesel and nitrogen oxide (NOx) is about three times the WHO recommended level.  This figure was only made public following a challenge from the Campaign for Clean Air, which estimates that London suffers a 20% increase in mortality rates as a result.

If you live on a busy arterial road in London you are continually exposed to two or three times more harmful inhalable particulates than the WHO warning level and it is also slowly starting to dawn on people that if you have a problem with outside air pollution; you are likely to have a problem inside the nearby buildings.

There are a lot of shops and offices on Oxford Street with their doors and windows open, for example, and in thousands of schools around the country, children are finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate in their polluted classrooms. Inside hospitals, most of which are located in busy urban areas, patients are at the mercy of harmful airborne particulates in poorly ventilated wards.

The Healthvent EU research project, carried out by the Technical University of Denmark, reported that almost two thirds of the burden of disease due to IAQ was from pollutants coming into the building.

For good health and productivity the air needs to be about 20-24degC with a relative humidity (RH) of about 40-60%. The ventilation system needs to dilute CO₂ levels and replace oxygen – it’s a very fine balance and, because of the heavy focus on reducing energy use, many building managers are using ‘natural’ methods as much as possible and getting the balance wrong.

Air tight building envelopes are a good way of saving money and keeping out external pollutants, but opening windows is not a good idea if you don’t know the level of pollutants in the outside air – and you will undermine the energy saving strategy.

It is very hard to get the right balance of temperature, humidity and air quality through ‘natural’ means alone and it is essential to invest in proper maintenance of air handling units and ductwork hygiene to keep particulate levels under control.

A well-sealed building envelope and effective filtration of incoming supply air can reduce particle penetration by 78%, according to a range of studies. This shows that testing a building for airtightness is just as much a health issue as part of an energy saving strategy.

The recently revised BS EN 15780 standard also provides recommended inspection time periods for air systems to improve monitoring and the B&ES Guide to Good Practice for ventilation system hygiene (TR/19) provides contractors with clear guidelines in line with this standard.

B&ES has also set up an Indoor Air Quality Strategy Team to gather as much information as possible about this hugely important area and help building engineering services firms advise their clients. We have plenty of technical expertise and a range of solutions, but find ourselves continually preaching to the converted. The big task is communicating to the wider world that buildings are not always safe havens from pollution – just as they don’t always successfully exclude the environment when it is too hot or too cold outside.

As the country’s air pollution crisis intensifies, we have a national platform to promote better understanding of the need for high quality building ventilation accompanied by proper, planned maintenance.

There is nothing ‘wholesome’ or even ‘natural’ about urban air. It is, in no way, organic and, just as it took time for scientists to establish that diesel engines were not the carbon answer; so it will take time for people to recognise the facts about indoor air quality and the need for urgent action.

Face west, young man

The age of generous subsidies for renewables is over. Our new government will not be re-opening the coffers – unless the Greens make it into a true ‘rainbow coalition’.

Renewable technologies and installations will have to stand on their feet and be competitive in the open market. The cost of products has fallen rapidly, reducing the need for subsidy and driving us closer to grid parity with fossil fuels.

And that is how it should be…although it is fair to ask whether this would have happened without subsidy creating the market in the first place.

Whatever their merits at the time, feed-in tariffs overheated the solar PV market and led to a lot of inappropriate installations. Similarly with heat pumps; the subsidies meant developers were installing electric systems in homes on the main gas grid – leaving a legacy of systems that will never pay for themselves either economically or in carbon saving.

Fortunately, we now seem to be entering a new era where each possible solution – renewable or conventional – will have to satisfy economic and environmental criteria on their own merits. What might surprise people is that many renewable technologies will still be the most economic choice. 

Stranded
Building clients looking long-term are starting to view investment in fossil fuel technologies as decidedly uncertain – they are concerned about ending up with stranded assets in ten or 15 years’ time. Although we have enjoyed significant falls in tariffs since the oil producing countries, in tandem with emerging shale gas markets, drove down the wholesale energy price; the long-term picture for oil, gas and coal is increasingly uncertain and ‘energy security’ is coming back onto the agenda.

Couple that with growing maturity and more technical innovation in the renewable sector; and you have a recipe for greater investment in small scale, building specific renewables. For example, one big drawback with solar panels is that they are usually positioned facing south to capture the most intensive solar energy. However, demand for power tends to be lowest in the middle of the day because homes are unoccupied and commercial buildings use more natural daylight and less heating – but that is when the sun is in the south.

The industry has battled long and hard with the problem of how to store renewable energy for when you need it most, but it also has an alternative solution: Solar panels that automatically adjust their position east to west tracking the sun are now available. This makes it possible to use solar energy for longer periods in the day, which fundamentally alters the economic equation. We can expect to see their wider adoption in the UK in the near future.

This kind of solution is not expensive and is why technology is set to play a much bigger role than subsidies. As a result, the renewable industry has a much more sustainable, long-term look about it with greater job security for everyone it employs.

Energy was never their thing

The ‘greenest government ever’ marked their final weeks in power by confirming what most of us realised more or less as soon as they came to power: They never really got this energy efficiency thing.

Although on the face of it the last five years saw significant progress on carbon reduction and this was acknowledged by the Committee on Climate Change; this had more to do with the recession and the reduction in the use of coal in power generation – rather than anything the coalition did to promote energy efficiency.

On energy ‘policy’, the administration twisted and turned; chopped and changed; and moved in whatever direction they thought the ‘business’ world wanted them to go. Their policies on renewables and the Green Deal revealed their complete lack of conviction on this issue. And, as a final flourish, they set out to abolish Display Energy Certificates (DECs) from public buildings - just three years after announcing they planned to extend their use into the private sector.

Crossfire
The Conservatives are instinctively anti-regulation and consider anything to do with setting minimum standards an imposition on business. Unfortunately, almost every energy or carbon abatement measure was caught in the political cross-fire because the Conservatives set out to reinforce their business credentials ahead of the General Election and to emphasise the apparent anti-business stance taken by the Labour opposition.

I can understand, to a degree, their fear of over-regulation, but the UK is heading very rapidly towards the other extreme and we have clearly entered a period where it is not about developing long-term strategy on energy, but scoring political points. We cannot expect the market alone to deliver minimum energy standards in buildings because clients will, in most cases, opt for the cheapest solution unless there is, at least, some measure of compulsion.

Having said that, a number of private property firms have introduced voluntary DECs because they can see the commercial value in measuring, monitoring and being upfront about their energy performance.  How ironic in light of the government’s latest move.

Even more ironic is the fact that remote metering is being imposed on the private building sector by the department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS). In a clear case of double standards, private users will be scrutinised in order to make it easier for energy suppliers to charge them – despite delays to the roll out programme and growing unease about smart meter technology; while DCLG sets about removing the one mechanism that has some chance of impelling the public sector to tackle its energy waste. 

U turn
You have to fear for the future of the regulations now in place designed to compel landlords to bring their properties up to EPC band E or F by April 2018. Is there a U-turn coming there as well? I guess we will see once we know the colour of the next administration.

DECs and EPCs - and BREEAM ratings for that matter - are far from perfect and suffer from poor enforcement. It is very rare for anyone to actually go back and check the building was performing as claimed, however, the principle is essential.

We cannot progress towards carbon and energy saving targets without proper measurement and monitoring of ‘actual’ energy consumption in buildings – this really is a first base issue.

It is also not an onerous burden on business. Quite the opposite; it adds value to buildings. A building that is cheaper to run is better designed and operated and, therefore, more comfortable to inhabit leading to more productive occupants. As has already been shown in Australia and other parts of the world, such buildings command better rents.

Blue chip property firms here have woken up to this fact, which is why they want higher energy ratings for their buildings - there is a clear business benefit. Why, therefore, did our ‘pro-business’ government not see it the same way? And can we hope that the next one will see this whole energy policy ‘thing’ differently?

Air filtration for all!

Local and central government officials have missed (or ignored) the link between outside air pollution and building related health problems for years.

Within the building engineering community we have been pointing out for some time that polluted air does not simply mysteriously disappear when it reaches a building. On the contrary, it has a catastrophic impact on indoor air quality (IAQ).

Yet, while there have been plenty of high profile efforts to measure outside air pollutants and lots of political grandstanding on the issue – there has been almost total silence on what all this means for the indoor environment. This is despite the fact that we spend most of our lives indoors.

However, the release of the Environmental Audit Committee’s latest report just before Christmas could mark a significant change of direction.

This group of influential government advisers is now calling for the installation of air filtration in all existing school buildings close to pollution hot spots. Their report clearly explains the impact of diesel vehicle emissions; nitrogen dioxide (NOx) and particulate pollution on building occupants.

They said air pollution was now a ‘public health crisis’ causing nearly as many deaths as smoking in the UK every year – about 29,000. They want changes made to the National Planning Policy Framework and new guidance to ensure local authorities prioritise IAQ before granting planning permission for new schools, hospitals and clinics.

Particulates
NOx is known to cause inflammation of the airways, reduce lung function and exacerbate asthma while particulates are linked to heart and lung diseases as well as certain cancers. Traffic is responsible for 42% of carbon monoxide, 46% of nitrogen oxides and 26% of particulate matter pollution. The Committee also pointed out that the problem had become much worse because of the promotion of diesel vehicles in a bid to cut CO₂ emissions.

Committee chair Joan Walley said the main priority was to ‘stop a new generation of children being exposed’ to these risks by retrofitting air filtration in more than 1,000 schools close to major roads. She added that it made ‘sound economic sense’ to filter the air coming into buildings in polluted areas – particularly urban centres.

B&ES speakers recently addressed the Healthcare Estates conference in Manchester where it was agreed that, despite the desperate need for cost savings across the NHS, building systems are rarely inspected, serviced or updated. A few weeks later Channel 4 News revealed the growing scandal about unserviced fire dampers in the ductwork at the PFI flagship Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

Refreshing
The NHS is already at the forefront of the General Election campaign – and as usual the arguments are all about funding. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if the debate could be a bit broader and bit more intelligent.

There is, therefore, a great opportunity here to ram home the message that, while ventilation systems may be ‘out of sight out of mind’ and the air we breathe is invisible, that does not make the link between airborne pollutants and increasing rates of respiratory disease less obvious.

Current NHS technical design guidance is exclusively focused on managing the risk posed by the transmission of infections inside a building – again paying no heed to the dangers lurking outside. However, the building engineering services industry has a wide range of solutions to offer  including filtration, but also other (mainly low cost) improvements, such as upgrading fans and simple maintenance. These could not only reduce health risks to building occupants, but also do it in a way that improves the overall efficiency of the ventilation and so significantly cut running costs.

This same argument applies to a wide range of buildings under attack from outside air pollutants with vulnerable occupants at risk – schools being the most obvious example.

Save lives and save money – now surely that’s got to be a vote winner?

So they do listen!

The coalition government has struggled with renewables; falling out repeatedly with the industry and creating damaging uncertainty for investors by continually moving the goalposts and changing policy direction.
However, they have been more or less consistent on solar farms and the new Environment Secretary Liz Truss hammered the final nail into their coffin this week calling them ‘a blight on the landscape’.
The renewables industry hoped she would be more sympathetic than her predecessor Owen Paterson – who has now gone completely rogue by calling on the government to tear up the Climate Change Act – but she has kept up his attack on solar farms by scrapping subsidies for any new developments.
Chris Huhne drastically reduced the Feed-in-Tariff for solar power when he was Climate Change Minister and this latest announcement marks the end of a steady erosion of a misguided policy, which dates back to the previous Labour administration.
Credit
I am not claiming too much credit here, but B&ES (we were the HVCA back then) warned the government that solar farms would suck up a huge proportion of the public subsidy available for solar power in this blog in March 2011: ‘Farms are for food – not solar panels’.
It took a while for the penny to drop, but it was clear from the outset that, if farmers could make more money from FITs than from growing food, they would hand over their fields to the solar speculators.
The subsidies were designed to create a market for solar power by encouraging householders and small businesses to install panels on their roofs and, therefore, generate electricity close to the point of use and benefit directly themselves. Instead – and who can blame savvy financial investors from seizing the opportunity – commercial organisations saw them as a source of profit.
Prices
The UK now has more than 250 solar farms, which have pushed more of our food production overseas contributing to rising prices. And as I said at the time:
‘The FIT scheme was not intended to be an alternative to the equities markets, but to stimulate the generation of household renewable power. [Huhne] is, rightly, concerned that the subsidies are, instead, making their way into the pockets of so-called “shrewd investors”…’
I also warned that they risked putting the solar energy industry into reverse if they were too draconian with their cuts to the FiTs scheme – which is precisely what happened. However, getting solar panels out of the countryside and onto otherwise underused roof space was the right thing to do.
Perhaps, in this case at least, the government was listening to the industry.

Energy efficiency is not a tax

The General Election campaign is off and running as the political party conference season comes to a close and the emotive subject of housing looks set to be a key battleground.
The Conservatives tried to grab the political high ground at their conference in Birmingham by announcing 100,000 new homes for young (under 40) first-time-buyers at a 20% price discount.
This came hot on the heels of Ed Miliband’s pledge to ensure the country would have all the homes it needs by 2025. A hugely ambitious aim and almost as ambitious as the ‘war on cold homes’ announced by the Labour Party that would make it illegal for landlords to rent poorly insulated and inefficiently heated properties.
The trouble is 2025 is a long way away – and the ‘cold war’ policy would only come into effect in 2027! Our politicians are very good at taking a long-term view if it means they can get away with a huge target that they will not have to account for themselves. They are less good at making long-term decisions on energy policy.
Zero carbon
The Prime Minister has also tailored his own headline grabber for readers of the Daily Mail by insisting that the 20% discount would be achieved by exempting house builders from certain property taxes and…the zero carbon homes standard.
The ‘greenest government ever’ really don’t get this low energy thing at all, do they? This is just the latest example of them dumping low carbon measures because they regard them as a tax burden on ‘business’ and ‘hard working families’.
Unlike the car industry where the manufacturers were challenged to develop new standards and met them, the house builder appears incapable of meeting this challenge and government accepts their arguments at face value. This is not an industry that is suffering. When did you last hear a housebuilder issue a profits warning?
Stimulate
The fact is that energy efficient buildings don’t just save energy – they are also built to better standards. Why not take the opportunity to stimulate the first time buyer market with high quality, low energy housing on a cost basis that can then be replicated right across our housing market? Then it would be up to the industry to deliver.
Finding an excuse to drop energy standards is all too easy for our government. Energy saving is not a tax – it is a benefit.

Calling time on the smart meter rip off

Margaret Hodge MP, who chairs the influential parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts, believes the British public is being ripped off by the £12.1bn smart meter programme.
The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has instructed energy suppliers to install 53 million smart meters in 28 million homes and two million small businesses by 2020 at a cost of £215 per meter. The cost will, of course, be passed on to individual householders and businesses through their energy bills.
This was yet another of those ‘flagship’ green policies espoused by the government, but has turned out to be, in effect, simply a way of helping utility companies increase profits by helping them cut their operating costs.
Negligible
The impact on energy saving is now accepted to be almost negligible. Even DECC’s own figures suggest the use of smart meters will cut the average annual energy bill of £1,328 by just 2%. Not much of a return on investment – I suspect most householders would, given the choice, keep the £215.

Even this modest saving depends on consumers becoming more ‘energy savvy’ and changing their behaviour as a result of the additional information provided by the meter. That’s a huge assumption, as Ms Hodge’s committee were quick to point out, and they are clearly hard to ignore because the upshot is the second urgent parliamentary enquiry conducted by the Energy and Climate Change Committee into this issue in less than two years.
Interestingly, in the wording announcing this enquiry ‘energy efficiency’ does not figure. The Committee talks about ‘benefits to consumers, suppliers and the UK energy infrastructure’ by allowing energy suppliers to take remote gas and electricity readings and that overall ‘savings’ will be £18.8bn.
Competition
The figures are all over the place and nobody is quite sure where they are coming from. Hodge’s committee said DECC was depending ‘heavily’ on assumed competition in the energy industry to control costs and deliver benefits. ‘Relying on market forces to keep costs down may not be enough on its own to protect consumers,’ she said. ‘Energy suppliers are concerned that it may cost more to persuade reluctant customers to accept the new meters.’

Ms Hodge said DECC should require suppliers to provide ‘a clear breakdown for consumers of the cost of smart meters, their operational cost savings from stopping meter readings and whether consumers are achieving the expected reductions in energy consumption’.
There is also a very real danger that the Government is backing an obsolete technology that is actually not really ‘smart’ at all. It is already possible to control heating and cooling systems using apps on phones that are really ‘smart’ and via the Internet of Things. Consumers are also only looking for trends in energy consumption, these devices are accurate to @10% which makes them perfectly good enough for that function. The smart meter will only really reduce energy supplier costs through remote reading.
Why, therefore, is the government even consulting on the positively antiquated approach of a physical in-home display that is going to prove unpopular with consumers and logistically nightmarish to carry out? They should simply cancel the programme now and throw everything behind app-based energy information and control; invest in a huge public information programme that explains how consumers can access information and use it to save money – and save everyone £215.
With a General Election looming that would be the kind of nice little sleight of hand giveaway politicians love so much and might even convince us that the ‘greenest government ever’ has, finally, got to grips with at least one aspect of energy policy.

Controls emerge from the shadows

At the launch of a new qualification for building controls engineers,  Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA) President Steve Harrison told a story about the time 15 years ago when his company was struggling to attract the right calibre of new staff.
They had plenty of interest in two posts for controls engineers, but were rebuffed by a number of potential recruits because there was no appropriate professional qualification on offer at the end of the training period.
‘The best we could give them was qualified electrician status,’ he told guests during the high profile launch event held in The Shard. ‘We knew it wasn’t really appropriate for the skill level involved in the job, but there was nothing else.’
So it was with some delight that he was able to unveil the Building Controls Professional Assessment (BCPA) last month.  This has been developed to give apprentices, and existing industry operatives, a professional qualification at the end of their vocational training – a badge that will be recognised across the industry and by all the sector’s employers.
Stepping stone
The BCPA is a stepping stone to full engineering status for the controls profession and can be used as a launch pad for suitably qualified operatives to move onto a fully-fledged engineering degree and, eventually, chartered engineer.
This is a huge leap forward for the controls industry.  It offers the trappings of ‘professional’ status for an industry that has long struggled to emerge from the shadows despite its vital role in making buildings work properly.
More HVAC equipment is supplied with controls already on-board these days putting even more emphasis on the integration strategy to make multiple ‘intelligent’ system components interoperate – particularly as buildings become more complex.
Challenge
Integration, more generally, is rapidly becoming the most critical aspect of building services engineering. Adding renewables to existing buildings and trying to make them work in tandem with conventional heating and cooling systems is a huge challenge – successes are still depressingly rare.  With experience this will get easier, but without a proper integration strategy there is no chance. Contractors have to crack this problem because we cannot afford to be continually returning to sites to put things right – there is no profit in spending precious time firefighting.
That is why we at B&ES see the launch of this new qualification as extremely important and timely. We are also delighted to be working more closely with the controls industry via the BCIA as we seek to bring our professions closer together to deliver buildings that do not disappoint their owners.
This is something the two associations will be focusing on heavily during the rest of this year culminating in a major conference at the Barbican on November 27 – find full details of the Building Services Summit here.

Just because the market's heating up, there's no reason new homes should too

In his latest installment of his diary of a new house purchase, David Frise finds it hard to keep his cool

In the coming months the problem is certainly not under-heating but significant overheating. Temperatures in the third floor apartments regularly topped 34oC last summer. As you’ll know from my previous blogs, this is just one of a series of problems with the new build flat purchased froma major listed builder.Now that spring is here and the sun is visible through the smog, we have turned the heating off in our flat. It is as warm as toast and was very cosy for those long winter nights. In the spring the heating is rarely necessary as the building retains the heat very well. 

The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers’ Environmental Design guide defines overheating as “conditions when the comfortable internal temperature threshold of 28oC is surpassed for over 1% of the time.” In my flat block temperatures exceed these comfort levels, as the flats are almost fully glazed south facing with no solar shading, not even a tree. Exposed as they are to the sun from about 11.00 to 19.00, they bake.

One certainty in the world is that the sun will rise and traverse the sky across an entirely predictable path. The ancient builders of Stonehenge knew this, but apparently the modern housebuilder does not

As reported in Building last month, a recent Good Homes Alliance report highlighted this issue but the House Builders Association said Part L of Building Regulations was to blame for specifying levels of airtightness that were too high, causing them to overheat. This may be true, but I don’t think the Building Regulations require you to build south facing, full height glazing with no solar shading.

The SAP calculation sheet describes “Thames Valley overheating risk: negligible”. But one certainty in the construction world is that the sun will rise and set and traverse the sky across an entirely predictable path. The resultant solar gain in our buildings is therefore, likewise, entirely predictable. The ancient builders of Stonehenge knew this, but apparently the modern housebuilder does not. Our builder has said they will “investigate”, which, like the Private Eye  EUphemisms cartoon says, means “ignore it”.

The problem is not helped by windows that cannot be fixed open, so that a gust of wind causes them to blow either open or shut with considerable force - a danger to little fingers. Not a safety issue in the view of the developer though, as a window that can be fixed open is not a requirement of the Building Regulations. We wedge ours open with an old copy of Building, which seems appropriate.

Then there are the corridors, sealed passages that rarely drop below 28oC summer and winter. The SAP calculation claims that pre-insulated pipework has been installed. If they had installed the extra thickness would probably have meant we’d have to stoop in the corridors. But it makes it easier to get a pass on the SAP calculation if you say it’s there, and who is going to check?

This is further exacerbated by the absence of controls to slow or turn off the pumps when there is no heat or hot water demand in the apartments, eg. at night. So the pumps keep pumping hot water through the building 24 hours a day seven days a week. As residents we have no access to the Building Management System BMS so we can’t get them turned off, and I’m still waiting for that commissioning report from the builder – the one that the Building Regulations require.

Does all this make the occupants “collateral damage” in the war against carbon? If that’s so, then how about a product recall – actually we got this wrong, how can we put it right?

So are those Building Regulations “for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men”, or are they just an excuse to absolve you of responsibility?

This relationship isn't working

In his latest blog exposing the reality of buying a new build home in the UK, David Frise looks at the tangled mess organisations he has to deal with to try and get things done

Living in a new purpose built 56-apartment block can be very confusing. There are so many people in this relationship but none of them want to commit. There’s the freeholder (there have been two in 18 months), leaseholders, tenants, a housing association, a managing agent for the leaseholders, a managing agent for the freeholder, and the developer.

Where do they all fit in? The developer was the first freeholder. his is very convenient for them because they can claim all defects in the communal areas are their own problem and therefore don’t need to be rectified. However, they then sold the freehold to a very large insurance provider, without bothering to inform the leaseholders. This is not supposed to happen given the first right of refusal under the Landlord and Tenant Act.

Now the new freeholder has insured the building, at leaseholders’ expense, with a well known national insurance company that just happens to share the same name as the freeholder. How convenient, I’m sure. But not very good for the poor leaseholders, as the premium would appear to be, shall we say, uncompetitive.

Now this is probably all above board but when I asked for an explanation of how the managing agent tested the market and how much commission was paid, I was told “any commercial arrangement we may or may not have with our brokers to receive a share of their income to contribute towards our own administration costs and expenses is confidential”. I bet it is.

There is no question of the housebuilder sorting out the defect and arguing with the water company afterwards: they don’t do customer care.

This just looks wrong, if there is nothing to hide you would be open about it wouldn’t you? It is, however, perfectly legal. There is no one we can turn to for help – I tried the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Association of British Insurers (ABI) for a code of practice, the Information Commissioner (ICO) and the Leaseholder Advisory Service (LAS). None of whom could help, as from the FCA perspective, I wasn’t the holder of the insurance policy (just paying for it), the ABI referred me to the insurer, the ICO said the information was not about people, and the LAS agreed I did not have a right to this information. I can ask to see a copy of the invoice but that is unlikely to show the commission paid.

So the leaseholders are expected to stump up the premium on a building that the owner insures through itself, and have no right to know how the premium is calculated.

It is no wonder then that getting government policy implemented such as energy efficiency measures and community heating schemes, is so difficult. The default position is no change.

The insurance arm of the freeholder to our property, was recently quoted saying it was concerned at increasing losses from fire damage, which are now running at the highest level ever experienced.

However, at the same time their managing agent is telling us – their leaseholders – that the insurer/freeholder cannot get involved in fire safety issues within the building. The agent said: “Unfortunately matters pertaining to the actual fabric of the building is something that [the developer] will have to resolve with you, we cannot fix the problems directly”. Actually we weren’t asking them fix to the problems themselves, but simply how we could work with them to make the building they now own, safe to live in. That would, incidentally, also reduce the insurance risk.

There are other fractious relationships. The developer appointed the managing agent and signed a contract requiring six months notice be given to end the contract. Residents and tenants frequently wonder who the managing agent is actually representing. They have many contracts throughout the country with the same developer (a large national housebuilder) so appear keen not to rock the boat and seem unable to get the builder to fix anything.

For example the water meters have leaked and the residents are stuck in an argument between the water company and the developer about who is responsible. There is no question of the housebuilder sorting out the defect and arguing with the water company afterwards; they don’t do customer care. The managing agent doesn’t want to get involved as the water meters are demised to the individual properties. This means that each time a water meter fails the leaseholder has to report the fault themselves, despite damage being caused to communal areas.

That is inconvenient but far worse is that the communal heating system has not been properly commissioned. Getting that resolved is proving very difficult, because so many parties are involved and because while the heating system works, there is no compulsion on anyone to see that it works efficiently and according to design.

The complexity of property law and holdings and the opaque nature of who is entitled to what means that as a country we stick huge hurdles in the way of progress. How do you make landlords carry out energy efficiency improvements, or agree to community energy projects?

In London we are about to embark on large-scale residential tower developments along the River Thames, with centralised heating systems. Who will ensure that these highly efficient systems actually deliver on those low energy promises?

The shocking truth about my housebuilder and health and safety

In fourth of his diaries of a new home purchase, David Frise details how his builder consciously flouted health and safety laws

I mentioned in my blog introducing this series that the builder of my new house – a major listed housebuilder – has shown a total disregard for health and safety. My subsequent blogs detailed the firm’s construction failing and inability to provide me – the customer – with basic information about its performance and functionality.

But it’s time to come back to this disregard of health and safety. This came as a genuine shock. I have worked in construction for over 20 years and, genuinely, had not experienced this hugely disappointing lack of care.

Examples? Well, let’s start with the windows.

The flats have tilt and turn full height windows. So, to stop people falling out glazed guards are fitted, which are half the height of the window and very heavy.

One has already fallen off – fortunately from a ground floor flat. A second was found to be loose. There are four floors in the block, so you can imagine the result if someone leans against a guard on the upper floors and it gives way. Danger from above and below.

You would think this would trigger an immediate safety check of the 100 or so other guards. Well you would be wrong. There is apparently no need to check as these two particular window guards were installed by a ‘rogue contractor’. That makes me feel so much better.

I’ve seen the ‘Building Log Book’ and it tells me they have inadequate records of the build, so how can they be so sure about this particular aspect? As I told one of the directors: “You surely don’t earn enough money to take this level of personal risk?”

It seems incredibly cavalier that the directors remain oblivious of their responsibilities - or simply choose to ignore them. Actually, as I have pointed out the former to them, it has to be the latter.

We have mice on the first floor. They must have come in through holes in the structure where the services penetrate. Begs the question how did the housebuilder pressure test the building?

What else? The window installation company changed a window on the fourth floor using a cherry picker. The problem was that they waited until it was dark. It was also sited in a public car park and crossed a school footpath, which remained open so school children could walk under the platform.

The residents on the floors below were not warned, so they could also walk under the platform as the window was hoisted into position.

I reported this incident to the housebuilder with photographs. The result: Nothing. In fact they didn’t even acknowledge my complaint, even after numerous chasing letters.

Ironically, when I asked to go onto the flat roof to see the solar thermal installation I was advised I would need to complete a £600 “safety course” first.

Anything else? Yes, actually. They took a year to produce a Legionella risk assessment and even then it was just the bare minimum as it only covered the public areas. Residents have received no advice about the risks or any precautions they should take.

We had a number of soil and vent pipe leaks into the undercroft basement car park. I cycled through a bad one (not recommended - contact with human faeces can damage your health). The plumber tried to blag my wife that the water was only shower waste. He claimed the toilets used a different system.

My wife’s response: “Don’t p*** on me and tell me it’s raining”. She is a plumber’s wife after all. The builders have so little regard for the residents that they even refused to pay for water sampling to prove their claim that some of the leaks were rainwater not toilet water.

We have mice on the first floor. Intelligent creatures mice, but they didn’t take the lift and didn’t open the fire doors and climb the stairs to appear magically behind kitchen units. They must have come in through holes in the structure where the services penetrate. Begs the question how did the housebuilder pressure test the building?

The builder thinks the residents are “over-reacting” and said “if you can locate the holes we will fill them”. My concern is that where the mice can go smoke can follow. Is our fire safety compromised? The fire at Lakanal House, where six people lost their lives in 2009, resulted from smoke passing between floors. We currently have two fire doors that do not shut fully. This was reported four weeks ago as a defect, but still has not been repaired despite numerous follow up reports from residents.

Do these companies never learn anything?

Over a third of the water meters have leaked causing water damage down the stairwells, which led to two fire alarm panels having to be changed. We thought this might prompt a product recall and replacement meters. Of course, we were wrong… again.

So despite bland published statements like “in managing health and safety we take a pro-active approach” and “the safety of you and your family is extremely important to us” the evidence would suggest that this approach either ends at handover or there is a cultural issue at this very large national housebuilder. How else could one explain such a blatant disregard of the safety of those to whom they owe a duty of care?

Official secrets: Why are housebuilders keeping us in the dark?

David Frise battles to find out if his new home from a listed builder is performing as it should

I started my career in the Royal Navy, in fact in nuclear submarines. I have signed the Official Secrets Act and clearly see the need to keep secret the design of a nuclear power plant on a submarine. I fail to see, however, why the schematic of a centralised gas-fired boiler system in a 52 apartment block in North London should be a big secret. But apparently it is.

The latest installment in my diary of my new home purchase concerns openness and consumer information.

Regarding the boiler schematic, the builder has flatly refused to give me a copy. “We have declined to provide a schematic because it is a communal system”. Why not? What harm could be done by providing a resident with information about the installed systems?

I have also been frustrated in my attempts to get a copy of the schematic of the solar thermal installation. I needed this because the building would qualify for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)at a rate of 8.5p KWhr (at the time it was relevant) and I thought this would be sensible to pursue. Again I was refused, only to find out that the installer had entered an Energy Efficiency awards competition – and I was one of the judges (unlucky for them)! They were claiming quite remarkable performance from the system they installed in my block. It was particularly remarkable because I happened to know it wasn’t working because of a leak on the system.

In fact there is, incredibly, a heat meter already installed, but you won’t be surprised to hear it is in the wrong place and not wired

The installer did, however, offer to send over a schematic to allow the installation of the required heat meters for the RHI. Weeks passed and when chased the promised schematic had mysteriously disappeared and, in fact, they said they only did the maintenance. Really? Not what their competition entry said. They are apparently still able to install the heat meters though. How they will do that, without knowing what size they need to be and where to site them is a mystery. In fact there is, incredibly, a heat meter already installed, but you won’t be surprised to hear it is in the wrong place and not wired.

Other items that have the security status of “For Builders’ Eyes Only” include the basis on which a Code for Sustainable Homes Level 3 was attained. The developer seems to have the equivalent of a rubber stamp: “Permission Denied”. However, as I am in the know I contacted BRE who administer the Code. BRE have no record of inspections and so pointed me towards DCLG. They again have no records. There is no central registry and, as I did not pay for the inspection, I am not entitled to see how the code level was attained.

Now, as I have two shower valves with a combined flow rate of 43.4 litres per minute, a dishwasher, washing machine and two toilets, I am not really sure how we sneak under the 105 litres per person per day requirement of the code. But as I’m rapidly learning, it’s all on a “need to know” basis, and in order to bill me Thames Water have installed a meter that I am now able to read (I had to buy a key to the cupboard) so I know my water consumption is 180 litres per person per day.

No wonder they want to keep it all a secret.

They don’t know what they’ve built

David Frise with the second in his series of articles charting his experience of buying a new build flat marketed as reaching Code for Sustainable Homes level three

I should have realised “early doors” that the builder of my brand new Code for Sustainable Homes level three flat was not really too concerned about what they had built. They couldn’t tell me if the solar array was solar PV or thermal when asked.

Having taken possession, and checked what we could before the sky darkened over our new home on that first night, we immediately noticed a fault in the design. No light switch for the living room! It was quickly found however … in the hallway.

This quirkiness of design rapidly became a trend; we noticed we couldn’t operate the kitchen extractor fan from within the kitchen. This switch took a bit more finding, as it was located in the airing cupboard, (where else?). An unmarked two speed light switch operates the fan. The manual advises you to leave the fan operating in low speed at all times to ventilate the bathrooms, but if you’re cooking the fan needs to be on a high speed (so you have to walk out the kitchen and make the switch, not very high tech. Invariably we forget to switch it back to low speed after cooking, so wasting energy. I made a note to get that changed; Building Regulations require local switching of fans.

After one night we also abandoned the fan running constantly on low speed, it’s far too noisy to sleep with it on.

We noticed we couldn’t operate the kitchen extractor fan from within the kitchen. This switch took a bit more finding, as it was located in the airing cupboard, (where else?)

I checked the instruction manual for the fan and became more puzzled as the manual was for a MVHR (mechanical ventilation heat recovery) model, which are very efficient and save lots of energy by recovering around 90% of the heat extracted. I could see the extract side but no supply air ducts; the system should balance supply and extract air. I queried this with customer support; “I’ll get back to you on that”. Two weeks later, the reply was, “we’ve issued you the wrong manual in error”. The correct manual was dispatched but took months to arrive.

This got me thinking and having checked the energy performance certificate (EPC) in the flat manual I thought I’d like to see the SAP calculation. If the MVHR was used in that calculation it would produce a much better result than straightforward extract. This is after all a code level three flat so dumb extract seemed wrong.

I waited a long time for the SAP calc, and had to ask for it on numerous occasions. Eventually I got one but it was marked “draft”, so I asked for the correct one. Months passed again but the second one produced was a “checklist”. I’m now getting really suspicious, because one thing I noted on the “checklist” is, that the ventilation system is described as ”balanced” indicating MVHR (straightforward extract being “unbalanced”). I therefore asked again for the correct SAP calc. That was six months ago and to date I’ve received nothing. So I know what I think the answer is.

The builder uses this tactic frequently – giving any request they don’t like the look of “a good stiff ignoring”. The other 51 residents in this block wouldn’t know a MVHR if it hit them over the head. So you will get away with this on 51 of 52 occasions. I thought if you had made a genuine mistake and supplied the wrong manual you would quickly provide the evidence within a correct SAP calculation wouldn’t you? If however you had “value engineered” out the MHVR somewhere between planning approval and build, you have made 52 savings on fans, ductwork, louvres and labour. It all adds up.

I said in the first article that the housebuilder sold me a Volkswagen and delivered a Skoda. The building designed for planning did not translate into the finished article and the builder does not have accurate enough records of the changes. Or perhaps they do, but to produce them would prove what I can only currently surmise. I’m more inclined to believe they don’t know what they’ve built, and worse, don’t much care.

Why housebuilders are trying to sell you a Skoda

David Frise starts a series where he will chart his experience of how one major housebuilder failed to build the home it promised, and then staunchly refused to do anything about it

Housebuilders are a lucky bunch. They have prospered during the recession that has decimated the construction industry. How have they done this? By sitting on their landbanks and squeezing the supply chain.

Having done little to help during the crisis, they have now been rewarded by being given a £3.5bn cash boost from the chancellor, desperate to stimulate economic growth, through the Help to Buy scheme.

The missed opportunity to attach a price for this prize is staggering. We are not even going to insist that they build things properly. The fact that in recent weeks the government has suggested houses should have reasonable space to live in and somewhere to put our bins, suggests an industry not really focused on their customers.

Having done little to help during the crisis, housebuilders have now been rewarded by being given a £3.5bn cash boost

But why should housebuilders care? They have unsurpassed political clout, customers queuing up to buy their products, no new entrants into the market because of big barriers to entry and, it seems to me, nobody checking the quality of build.

The result is numerous complaints about cramped accommodation, poor workmanship and long running defects. I’ve been considering this of late: why is there such a divergence between what they sell and what they actually deliver?

How do I know about this problem? Well, I’ve recently bought a new flat in a brand new, purpose-built apartment block. Not any old flat but a Code for Sustainable Homes level 3 flat, from one of the largest housebuilders in the country, one that is expanding on the back of the chancellor’s largesse and recording record profits.

I have concluded there are two reasons for the performance gap, apart from “because they can”.

Firstly, they sell you a Volkswagen Golf, give you a Skoda and tell you it’s the same. But why don’t we rail against this inequity? Well, basically we don’t know we have been sold a Skoda. How would we know without an in-depth knowledge of Building Regulations? In my case I have tried to get the information but have been subject to a good stiff dose of ignoring, dissembling and misinformation.

One year after moving in I still do not have basic information like a SAP calculation, a schematic of the centralised communal heating system so I can work out how the system works and no information on the solar thermal heating, that in theory should qualify the development for the Renewable Heat Incentive.

So you have to be an expert to spot the scam.

A house is the biggest purchase of our lives so we don’t want to make it look like we’ve been sold a pup

Secondly, house purchases are about location, location, location. This is the biggest purchase of our lives so we don’t want to make it look like we’ve been sold a pup. As long as the building doesn’t fall down, the housebuilder has nothing to fear. We stay pretty quiet.

It isn’t just that the build that doesn’t match the expectation. My housebuilder has in its brochure a section on customer care – Because we care. A photograph of a bank of three operators ready to take your call is displayed. In reality they have a part time, non-specialist in place who has the ability to dump information at the end of each call. The person can’t open an Excel spreadsheet detailing defects, in fact wondered “what that file was” in an email. To be fair almost everything that was forwarded on to the construction manager by the customer care “team” was roundly ignored, particularly if it was requests for information. It truly is customer “care” with no customer support from senior management.

Most disturbing and most surprising to me has been a cavalier approach to health and safety. In the area of commercial construction I’ve been involved in, H&S is taken very seriously, yet regional directors at housebuilders appear to be unaware of the concept of criminal negligence or duty of care.

In the coming weeks, I will be expanding on my battle with the developer, over problems ranging from windows which no-one knows how to clean, to leaking pipes and poorly thought through design to real health and safety issues. And how I’ve had to become a director of the residents’ management company to get information about the property I live in. Overwhelmingly it is a story about the builder’s complete lack of interest in whether or not the building operates to the design.

A right royal mess

 

February 24, 2014

It might be cold comfort to the three million or so people in this country classified as ‘fuel poor’, but the Queen is now officially one of them.

Last week’s report into the royal finances revealed that almost £10m is spent annually on ‘utilities and IT’ at Her Majesty’s official residences – including Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Sandringham and Balmoral. She receives £31m from public coffers for the upkeep of the buildings, meaning she is spending comfortably more than the 10% of her income on keeping warm that qualifies her as fuel poor – even allowing for her IT and lighting costs.
It also emerged that the 60-year-old central heating system at Buckingham Palace will cost over £1m to replace. I wonder if she would qualify for ECO assistance. Clearly, biomass is an option, which means she could claim the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) payments from April when the residential scheme kicks off. She does own quite a lot of trees after all.
However, Her Majesty does take a keen interest in the finances and is notoriously thrifty – her old fashioned electric fire being a case in point. So, she would surely sympathise with the B&ES mantra of sorting out the leaky fabric of historic buildings to improve their energy efficiency before even thinking about renewables.
Troubled scheme
Her financial instincts might initially attract her to a Green Deal package. However, she may already have seen the research carried out by DECC and recently highlighted in The Guardian, which effectively torpedoed the government’s claims for how much people can save through this troubled scheme.
Part of a long-term study into gas and electricity consumption, DECC’s research revealed that people would actually lose money by taking out a Green Deal loan because the measures deliver less than half the savings that continue to be claimed for it. Note: This is DECC’s own research.
Homeowners, who installed cavity and loft insulation and a new boiler in 2010 cut energy use by 19%, adding up to a saving of around £140 a year at current gas prices. Chris Goodall from the Carbon Commentary website did some further analysis of DECC’s figures and this was the basis of the Guardian article.
He found that a new boiler would produce annual savings of less than £70; cavity wall insulation about £54; and loft insulation £15. The Energy Saving Trust (EST) continues to publish an estimate of between £105 and £310 for the new boiler; up to £140 for the cavity wall insulation; and up to £180 for loft insulation
Interest
If someone installed all three measures in the same year, their typical saving was 3,600 kWh – or £139.46 at last year’s energy prices. The EST said they would save £270. The EST estimates that it would cost of £3,050 to fit all three measures and the Green Deal charges an interest rate of 8% on repayments.
But that’s not all. There are a large number of homes whose gas consumption actually rose after having the energy saving measures fitted due to poor workmanship or changes in occupant behaviour.
The decision to charge interest on Green Deal repayments now looks even more bonkers than before. Homeowners will be saddled with a charge added to their electricity bill for 20 years that more than wipes out any possible savings and gives energy efficiency, in general, a bad name. In fact, the Carbon Commentary team worked out families could be £200 a year worse off by taking out a Green Deal loan.
Goodall rightly asks: ‘If the research arm of DECC knows the true figure for the likely cost savings from energy efficiency measures, why are other parts of government continuing to promulgate much larger figures in order to get householders to take out Green Deals?’ Quite.
Incentives
Perhaps the Queen could mention to the Prime Minister, at one of their regular meetings, that if the government is truly committed to improving the energy efficiency of this country, it must underpin it with incentives that actually incentivise.
There is the kernel of a good idea in the Green Deal, but it has to be made appealing to consumers – not just to finance providers. That means scrapping the interest charge and, instead, offering those who carry out energy saving measures a reduction in their council tax and applying lower stamp duty rates to energy efficient homes. Both things are fiscally cost neutral.
Have a word, Ma’am.

At last - some good news!

 

December 4, 2013
After weeks of unedifying politicking over energy prices and green subsidies, the government has shown that it can – once in a while – make a sensible decision about energy by reinforcing its support for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
The tinkering with ECO and the shambles that is the Green Deal prompted many of us to fear the worst when a review of the RHI was announced. Thankfully the government is expanding the non-domestic scheme to take in some more technologies and the domestic version will kick off in the Spring.
Currently just 2% of the UK’s heat is generated by renewables and uptake of the non-domestic RHI has been disappointing, since its introduction in 2011, something the government admitted in its response to the consultation.
‘We have seen strong uptake in certain renewable heat technologies and a 7% rise in renewable heat in 2012. However we have not, so far, seen the levels of uptake that were anticipated when the scheme was launched.
Expectations
‘Whilst applications of biomass installations smaller than 1MWth have exceeded our expectations, uptake for the other technologies offered support has been lower than was originally anticipated. Based on current applications we estimate the total heat generated in 2013/14 will be about 1.2 TWh. This is just over a third of what was originally expected.’
The improvements announced should drive up renewables share of the heat market to around 12% by 2020, according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Including air-to-water heat pumps is a really welcome move and the 2.5p/kWh tariff should give that market the lift it has been looking for since all the bad publicity received earlier this year. This incentive is dependent on an installation achieving a minimum seasonal performance factor of at least 2.5, which is clearly doable and will provide a worthwhile energy saving.
Heat pumps clearly have a part to play and so does CHP, which is also getting increased support with an increased tariff for biomass and biogas systems.
In the domestic scheme, the government has confirmed the tariff for solar thermal at 19.2p/kWh, which should help to revitalise a good technology that fell back dramatically in the face of rapid PV expansion taking up much of the available roof tops.
However, the RHI remains far from perfect. One disappointment is that the industry’s call for a method of rewarding good system design has been ducked.
Underpinning
In our response to the consultation, B&ES called for minimum energy efficiency standards to be adopted as an underpinning requirement for RHI funding. That way only the most efficient systems would be supported. The current scheme, rather perversely, pays out less to the most efficient systems because they generate less heat.
In its response, DECC said: ‘Energy efficiency is at the heart of the Government’s approach…and Government plans over time to unlock this potential through existing policies, such as the RHI. However, we will not be introducing explicit energy efficiency criteria for non-domestic RHI applicants at this time.
‘The mixed views from consultation respondents made it clear that more work needs to be done to establish a range of effective, but not unduly burdensome energy efficiency measures that could be introduced.’
That means the industry has a bit more work to do on presenting the case for energy efficiency as the underpinning driver for all such schemes.
It is troubling that politicians and government officials continue to struggle with the concept of energy efficiency. They are far more comfortable with the idea of increasing generation of energy than using what we already have more efficiently. Hence their obvious confusion over how to support energy efficiency schemes like ECO and the Green Deal.
However, let’s not be churlish. We can return to that theme another day. Today is a day for welcoming a positive step in the right direction and the government showing it can think long-term, when it wants to.

The price is too high for Cameron's £50 roll back

 

December 3, 2013

David Cameron has rolled over, rolled back and let the energy companies tickle his tummy. It is not a pleasant picture.

Within hours of the government’s announcement that it was cutting the ‘social charges’ added to domestic energy bills, several of the suppliers announced a reduction or freeze in their charges to customers. Job done. The government gives itself lots of brownie points for helping ‘hard working families’ and we all move on to the next short-term political crusade.
It all goes to show that the ‘greenest government ever’ does not do energy policy. The measures announced this week will shave about £50 from the average fuel bill of £1,340. The rebate element of that saving is just £12. Small beer, big problem.
This government just makes up policy as it goes along – it hasn’t the slightest idea of investing in the long-term. If you cut, or scale back, measures designed to reduce energy consumption, the long-term effect is increasing energy use and, therefore, costs.
It is that obvious, yet our politicians don’t get it – or rather, choose to ignore it in favour of short-term political point scoring.
Labour is no better. Ed Miliband was once this country’s Energy Minister, but has announced a ‘policy’ to freeze energy prices if he wins the next election. The cost of that? Prices rose within weeks and potential investors in new energy infrastructure started to get cold feet.
Security
Our energy efficiency strategy is in tatters; we have no long-term energy security …and, as a result, consumers will be paying much, much higher bills in the future.
Look, nobody said going green would be easy. It is a huge shift in technology and user behaviour – and possibly the most significant change of direction since the industrial revolution. However, it simply has to be done – there is no alternative; even if you don’t believe in climate change. To control energy prices in the long-term we have to find alternatives to finite supplies of fossil fuels or make sure we use as a little as possible.
Yet, every time there is a tough decision to make our government bottles it. No-one is going to invest in renewables and energy efficiency in this country if the government just raises the white flag every time the going gets tough.
The irony is that ECO was actually working, unlike numerous other government initiatives I could mention. It was starting to make a difference to the energy performance of harder to treat homes and putting a small dent in fuel poverty. Now it will be watered down to save consumers just £30-£35 a year.
Of course, the energy companies moved swiftly to embrace this by announcing new pricing. They love it because they pay less in ECO and get to sell more energy. Drinks all round.
The risk in watering down ECO is breathtaking. The long-term impact on fuel poor homes could be devastating. This is short-termism at its very worst. People who have trouble heating their homes will be the ones who pay the highest price for this miniscule rebate because their properties will be wasting energy far into the future.
Fuel poverty
Also, tinkering with the definition of fuel poverty is fooling no-one. The government has managed to take 800,000 families out of fuel poverty simply by changing the method for calculating it – that does nothing at all to address the underlying problem.
Instead a series of ‘roll backs’ are quickly unravelling our energy security. The Green Deal has been hung out to dry and the Code for Sustainable Homes is being abolished as part of the Housing Standards Review. Shaving tiny amounts from consumers’ bills to win a few votes is a total abrogation of responsibility for the future energy security of this country.
None of these schemes are perfect, in fact, they are an administrative nightmare for both consumers and installers, but that is what you get when over complicate schemes in an attempt to remove all the risk and at least we have some schemes capable of delivering energy savings. They should be improved rather than just swept away on a political whim.
Grants
The £540m worth of grants announced alongside the ‘roll back’ also don’t add up. Grants of £1,000 will be available for home buyers to spend on energy saving measures over the next three years – expected to support work in around 60,000 homes a year i.e. 180,000 homes in total. There are 26 million houses in the UK.
A scheme for private landlords is expected to reach 15,000 of the least energy efficient properties and £90m will be spent on improving schools, hospitals and other public sector buildings.
This pales into insignificance beside the £16bn cost of the UK’s first nuclear power plant in 20 years at Hinkley Point. Although that is being paid for by private investment, EDF has negotiated a tariff double the current price of electricity to guarantee its return. So, the government won’t spend a few pounds on insulation and other energy saving measures, but is perfectly happy to mortgage consumers’ future energy prices against expensive nuclear power.
We will keep banging the drum for energy efficiency – as the most valuable fuel we have is the fuel we don’t use – but I fear the government isn’t listening and we are all going to pay a very high price.

Cameron rolls back, rolls over – what will be his next trick?

 

October 25, 2013
David Cameron’s call for a “roll back” of green energy surcharges shows that the Government is now making up energy policy as it goes along.
He was quick to lambast Ed Miliband for announcing an energy price cap if Labour wins the next election – rightly pointing out that this would have a catastrophic impact on confidence in plans for energy infrastructure investment. Yet, almost without pausing for breath, he turns round and announces a review of the system for raising funds to pay for…energy infrastructure investment.
This is not only breathtaking hypocrisy and politicking of the worst kind; it shows a complete failure to understand our energy market and our country’s needs. Even his coalition partners the Lib Dems say he is panicking. His language at the despatch box betrayed his lack of poise on this issue. He might believe that Ed Miliband is a ‘con man’, but he was ill advised to voice that out loud.
He also conveniently forgets that the Climate Change Act of 2008 went through with support from both sides of the House – and green surcharges are a direct result of that Act.
Mortgaging the future
The Hinkley Point nuclear deal in the same week should give him further pause for thought. To get the nuclear deal over the line, he had to guarantee investors double the current price of electricity – in other words, he has mortgaged future domestic energy bills.
Green surcharges are not the whole reason our energy bills are rising – and it is hard to believe that Cameron doesn’t know that. The real reason is that we cannot control the wholesale market. Pension funds, who for so long saw utilities as core investments, no longer consider them the stable deliverers of returns and have disinvested. You would have expected the Tories to understand these pretty basic economic facts.
The big energy companies and investors didn’t like the look of the risk profile surrounding UK nuclear infrastructure so would only invest if the Government agreed to pay a high price.
According to the Climate Change Committee, the independent body advising the Government on how to meet our carbon reduction targets, household energy bills rose by an average of £520 between 2004 and 2012. Of that increase, £35 went towards supporting renewable power and £45 was invested in energy efficiency measures. Mr Cameron told the Commons that green charges had added £112 to the average annual energy bill.
Collapse
Even if his sums are right (and his own advisers are wrong); the addition of less than £10 a month to bills is hardly life changing – the collapse of our future energy infrastructure definitely would be.
Our industry has continually reminded the Government that you will only solve the problem of dwindling energy supplies with long-term policy decisions – yet both the Labour administration and the current coalition have flip flopped over this issue more than any other.
They managed to stick to their guns on petrol, though. Taxes account for more than 80% of what we pay at the pump and there were huge, violent protests in 2000 when we were paying around 80p per litre. Now, as we move towards £2.50 the protestors have melted away and there is much greater focus on the efficiency and reliability of vehicles to ensure they consume less fuel.
How about applying the same principle to buildings? Investment now in sustainable energy supplies will keep prices down in the future; but the most valuable energy is the energy we don’t use – so the big investment should be in energy efficiency. The Government has a perfectly good scheme in place for retrofitting every home in the country, but it is going nowhere.
Forgotten flagship
The Green Deal is rapidly becoming the forgotten ‘flagship’ policy because the “greenest government ever” has failed to invest in it. Not only has it not publicised it properly, it has allowed the loan repayments to be saddled with a 7% interest charge that is putting households off.
If the Government is prepared to mortgage future energy bills against nuclear energy and act as lender of last resort through Help to Buy, why can’t it make much more modest investments in energy saving? Underwriting the Green Deal so that it is cost neutral to homeowners, would turn the 80,000+ assessments that have been carried out into projects – currently only around 500 families have registered to convert their Green Deal assessment into an actual project.
Cameron should go further and incentivise the scheme by introducing lower council tax rates and stamp duty for energy efficient homes. This would lead to the nationwide rollout of energy efficient measures that would ensure households use less energy and, therefore, pay less now and in the future. The results would be visible long before Hinkley Point comes on stream.
It is pretty basic economics, but it does mean you have to stop making things up as you go along and playing party politics with our future.
Oh, and you have to believe there is a future beyond the next election.