environmental news & information about the UK electricity supply industry
The Committee on Fuel Poverty (CFP) annual report assesses progress towards the 2025 fuel poverty milestone and 2030 target and makes recommendations on energy bill affordability and a fair transition to net zero.
Committee on Fuel Poverty 13th Oct 2021 read more »
Rocketing costs and spiralling labour shortages are destroying Britain’s home renovation boom and causing chaos for homeowners. Crippled construction supply chains in the wake of the pandemic, Brexit, and the energy crisis are pushing home buyers to pull out of sales and negotiate house price discounts in response to hugely inflated wait times and charges. Official data shows that construction wage inflation in the three months to July was 11pc. For building materials, the jump was 15pc. Homeowners hoping to renovate have become hamstrung. Paula Stewart, 40, started renovating her semi-detached house in Liverpool at the start of July. “It has just been an utter catastrophe. Supplies have been delayed so many times that my tradesman have walked off site. I have had to spend an extra £3,000 to £5,000 on labour costs,” she said.
Telegraph 12th Oct 2021 read more »
Energy companies want us to change our habits and use gas and electricity at different times of the day. We are told that this will help to take pressure off the national grid — and help us to cut our bills. It has long been assumed that the installation of smart meters in every home, which monitor exactly when a household uses power, was the first step towards smarter energy tariffs that reward consumers for using power at different times of the day. An increasing number of energy firms are offering these smart tariffs that vary electricity costs during the day and make it cheaper at night. The new “time of use” tariffs combined with a smart meter are intended to change our behaviour because we can see how much our usage at peak times is costing. Unfortunately the tariffs have been hampered by delays in the installation of smart meters as well as design flaws in the first generation of meters.
Times 8th Oct 2021 read more »
The UK could more than halve its energy demand by 2050, making a substantial contribution to global and UK climate goals. The role of energy demand reduction in achieving net-zero in the UK. A new study brings together 17 energy demand modelling experts from within CREDS to provide extensive detail on the possibilities to reduce energy demand in every sector. These sectoral reductions in energy demand are brought together into a whole-system modelling approach, to understand the potential contribution of energy demand reduction to support climate action in the UK. Without energy demand reduction we will not achieve the UK’s Sixth Carbon Budget target in 2035 of 78% below 1990 levels, or our 2050 net-zero target. The UK Government has yet to define how energy demand will contribute to achieving our climate ambitions. Given the evidence presented in this report, it is imperative that the UK Government outline a detailed strategy and supporting policies to enable energy demand reduction to fulfil its necessary role in achieving rapid emissions reductions in the UK. Key findings: Without substantial reductions in energy demand, meeting climate targets becomes extremely expensive due to the substantial increases in the size of the energy system; Meeting carbon budgets aligned with net-zero by 2050 without substantial reductions in energy demand is extremely difficult and undesirable; Without a stronger role for energy demand reduction, the electricity system needs to be four times the size that it is today. Substantial energy demand reduction will moderate the expansion of the electricity system to double its current size;
CREDS 6th Oct 2021 read more »
Did Glasgow City Council do Scotland a favour by saying out loud how much it would cost to get all its housing stock up to reasonable energy efficiency standards but then unconvincingly fluffing the line about how it was going to pay for it? Yes, it probably did, because it prompted a debate we very much need to have which we’re not having. Heating houses in Scotland produces nearly three times as much carbon as all of our transport combined and many multiples of how much we belch out generating electricity. Everyone knows we need to fix this; no-one is talking about how to pay for it. But we really need to talk about it. Glasgow has priced the cost of retrofitting insulation to all its houses at about £11 billion and that is roughly in line with Common Weal’s costings for the whole of Scotland where we think that about £40 billion is needed (plus another £25 billion to replace current heating systems). This is big money because fixing the environmental performance of housing is expensive, time-consuming and varies greatly from house to house. We priced it at about £15,000 per household (£25,000 including heating) based on real-world case studies. Those case study numbers are higher but they have tended to be based on houses with particularly poor environmental performance. Economies of scale should help too – if it’s all done right.
Commonweal 7th Oct 2021 read more »
OFFICIALS have warned almost £11 billion of funding will be needed to transform homes across the Glasgow City Region into energy efficient properties – even before gas boilers are ripped out of homes to meet net zero targets. The “astounding costs” would mean up to £600 million of investment would be needed each year over the next 15 years to reach Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) level C. The Scottish Government has pledged for all homes to upgraded to EPC band C by 2035, but only if it is “technically feasible and cost-effective” – with the latest figures throwing that strategy into doubt. A new report from Glasgow City Region officials suggests that 428,000 properties will need to be upgraded – currently below the EPC band C standards. The document, to be considered by the Glasgow City Region cabinet next week, has warned the total costs are “estimated to be in the region of £10.7 billion”. The Scottish Conservatives have called on the SNP Government to set out funding for homes to be upgraded – warning “action needs to happen now, not years down the line”. Plans were unveiled last week for a staggering £30 billion of investment needed to help Glasgow achieve its net zero ambitions.
Herald 1st Oct 2021 read more »
The majority of UK homes leak heat like a sieve and are hungry for gas. In 2019, just 40% of (or 9.9 million) dwellings were in the top three tiers for energy efficiency (bands A to C). The government has committed to support as many existing homes as possible to reach band C by 2035. Upgrading a band-D home to band C would result in average annual savings of £179, while upgrading one from band E would save £594 a year. The recent surge in energy prices mean these savings are certainly underestimates. The Climate Change Committee, an expert body which advises the government, estimates that the UK will need to better insulate half its current housing stock of 29 million homes to cut emissions from homes to net zero. The annual installation of loft insulation must be 22 times greater by 2025 than in 2020. Now is the time for the government to acknowledge that record energy prices are a function of our addiction to gas and to take immediate steps to wean households off this fossil fuel. By insulating UK homes, we can also insulate households from unpredictable gas prices and spiralling bills.
The Conversation 29th Sept 2021 read more »
A Labour government would spend £6bn a year on the retrofitting of housing over the next decade as part of a wide-ranging plan to tackle climate change, the party’s leader has said.
Inside Housing 29th Sept 2021 read more »
Tens of thousands of social housing properties in Scotland are failing to meet the government’s minimum standards for energy efficiency, new data has revealed. The figures show that around one in every 15 social homes which should be meeting the standard are failing to do so – with the proportion as high as 40 per cent in some areas. A significant number of housing associations in Glasgow, which is due to host a major UN climate change summit in November, are among those performing worse than the national average on the energy efficiency target – a key part of the Scottish Government’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Critics say the figures are “really disappointing,” with warnings that – together with rising energy prices and UK Government cuts to universal credit – they will leave many social housing tenants “between a rock and a hard place.”
The Ferret 26th Sept 2021 read more »
The National 26th Sept 2021 read more »
Work has begun on a new low carbon innovation centre built at Shawfair just outside Edinburgh. The building will be carbon neutral when operational and will be the global centre of Research and design and manufacturing for two key technologies. The £25 million investment will be home to Danfoss Editron which develops electric and hybrid powertrain systems for heavy duty vehicles and to Digital Displacement – a technology conceived at the University of Edinburgh which will radically reduce energy consumption in hydraulic machines. Danfoss, a Danish family-owned company,estimates that global adoption of these two technologies could reduce the lifetime CO2 emissions of excavators alone by 80 Megatonnes (Mt) by 2030 – equivalent to the entire annual CO2 emissions of Scotland and Denmark combined.
Edinburgh Reporter 25th Sept 2021 read more »
Insulate Britain, the group behind Friday’s protest, launched only last week but its campaign of civil disobedience has already involved activists repeatedly blocking the M25, causing long tailbacks and leading to more than 300 arrests. The campaign is calling for the government to insulate the UK’s draughty housing stock – social housing by 2025 and the rest by 2030 – to tackle climate emissions, reduce fuel poverty and improve public health. Its tactics have been fiercely criticised, with politicians labelling the protesters as selfish and warning they were putting themselves and others in danger. But as the protesters vowed to continue their campaign, academics and policy experts acknowledged that although there were misgivings about the group’s tactics, its call to improve the UK’s often draughty and inefficient housing stock – some of the worst in Europe – had widespread support. For more than a decade, climate scientists and policy experts have regarded insulating homes as “low-hanging fruit” in the effort to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions – with huge additional benefits in terms of tackling fuel poverty and improving public health. Jess Ralston, an analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said that although most experts “wouldn’t dream” of joining demonstrations like the one organised by Insulate Britain, there was widespread agreement with the group’s demands. “Their methods may be disruptive, but many experts inside and outside of government have repeatedly agreed with their messages and called for a plan to sort out our poorly performing homes over the last decade,” said Ralston.
Guardian 24th Sept 2021 read more »
Cutting down on the energy you consume, using it at the right time, or generating some of your own, will take on added importance as gas and electricity prices climb. A few small changes to your home could be the key to weathering a winter of rising energy bills. Here are some of the steps you can take, how much you could save, and the pitfalls to avoid.
Telegraph 24th Sept 2021 read more »
We have to insulate Britain, but M25 protests don’t make the case for it. Gaby Hinsliff. If anything was going to make me well up in public, I never imagined it would be the joys of insulation. Loft lagging does not generally make the heart sing. People do not normally get choked up over cavity wall filling. But it turns out they probably should. A few weeks ago someone showed me a film about a regeneration project to retrofit a social housing estate in Padiham, near Burnley, with green energy measures – and frankly, it would have melted a heart of stone. The houses were draughty and mouldy, with elderly storage heaters that cost a fortune but still didn’t keep people warm. One woman’s heating bills were so high she was skipping meals so that her son didn’t go without. When the housing association-turned-developer Places for People promised to install solar panels, insulation and new windows, they were met with some suspicion. If you live in social housing, you’ve seen promises come and go. But the film ended with residents marvelling at how much money they were saving every week (more than some are probably likely to lose this winter in universal credit, to put it in perspective) and how marvellous it was not to be huddled miserably under a duvet all day for warmth. Parents could now afford the occasional treat for their kids. Even the builders doing the work looked a bit emotional.
Guardian 24th Sept 2021 read more »
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