New Legislation to Improve Energy Efficiency for Business Users
In the state opening of parliament a new bill was discussed to improve the energy efficiency in all homes and businesses across the UK.
The new bill outlined some of the measures that the new coalition government are to introduce including a pay as you save scheme where business and domestic customers can introduce new insulation into their premises and only pay back for the investment via their utility bills once they start saving from the measures they introduce.
Pay as you save with investment from the government
This is a similar scheme that the previous Labour government were bringing in but will now be rolled out for everyone. The new energy bank scheme which had £2bn allocated under the Labour government and sought a similar figure from private investment was to allocate around £6,500 for each home under conservative proposals in their manifesto and the Liberal Democrats had a figure of £10,000 per home in theirs. However, as this is intended for insulation as well as investment in renewable sources such as solar panels this amount may need to revised upwards because the cost of solar panel installation averages around £15,000 per home.
Renewable energy and efficiency lead the way forward
Nevertheless, this announcement clearly signals a commitment to reducing the loss of heat from business premises and homes, a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions from better insulation and investment in double glazing and from reducing the loss of heat from within a building. In addition to this standard energy efficiency measures to reduce overall consumption for the fitting of smart meters in each home (most businesses already have smart meters installed) shows where the country is heading in the green arena.
The bill also includes other measures aimed at the energy produces and suppliers such as the regulation of carbon emissions from coal fired power stations, requiring the energy companies to provide more information on their bills so consumers and businesses can make a more informed choice over how they are using electricity and gas supplies and to reform the overall market so that the overall supply of energy is more secured over the longer term as traditional sources of fuel reduces.
Grants reversed
Changes have also been made over grants available for installing solar panels and other green measures. In reality all of these have now been scrapped under the coalition government’s cost saving programme and feed in tariffs rates may change for people investing under the renewable heat incentive programme. Feed in tariffs pay an amount per kHw of energy produced from solar or other renewable sources and then if you generate too much electricity for your needs you can then sell the remainder back to the National Grid for others to use and be paid an additional amount on top of this. Things may change in this area depending on how this bill progresses.
It was also been announced that the Low-Carbon Building Programme (LCBP), the microgeneration grant scheme, will end immediately and will not be extended. LCBP grants for electricity-generating systems such as solar photovoltaics and wind turbines had already been withdrawn following the introduction of feed-in-tariffs rewarding homeowners for each unit of renewably generated electricity they produce
What others said
Prime minister David Cameron said he wants the new government to be the “greenest ever” and promised to cut government department emissions by ten per cent in a year’s time. He also pledged to meet targets to cut overall UK emissions by 80 per cent within 40 years.
Energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne said: “The Queen’s speech and last week’s programme of government make clear that energy security and taking real action to tackle climate change aren’t add on extras for this new government, but are vital to our national interest.”
David Nussbaum, speaking on behalf of WWF-UK, gave a cautious welcome to the legislation, and said “To ensure the UK meets its climate change targets, WWF and the Great British Refurb have long been calling for the UK’s 26 million homes to be retrofitted quickly and to the highest possible standards. A government commitment to improve the energy efficiency of our existing housing stock is therefore extremely welcome.”
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