York EPC

The town where one in ten have opted for solar power

Mike Pirozek — Sat, 23 May 2015 11:48:52 +0000

Even before she got behind her desk in Whitehall, Amber Rudd, the new energy secretary, was promising to “unleash a new solar revolution”. A million people now live in homes with solar panels on the roof, and she says that number needs to increase further. Yet the residents of one small town in Cornwall need no extra persuasion.

For full story click here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32782324

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£70 million for home energy efficiency through the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund Release 3

Neil — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 14:48:40 +0000

More people will enjoy a warmer home for less thanks to the third release from the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund (GDHIF) worth up to £70 million.

From midday, Monday 16 March, the popular scheme will open to new applications for the new release of funding, with up to £5,600 available to households in England and Wales to help with the cost of installing certain energy saving measures such as solid wall insulation, double glazing, boilers, cavity wall and floor insulation.

Click here for the full story

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UK spent 300 times more on fossil fuels than clean energy despite green pledge

Neil — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 14:59:19 +0000

Government’s export credit agency gave £1.13bn to ‘dirty’ energy operations abroad compared to just £3.6m to clean energy.

The UK government has broken a key pledge to support green energy abroad over “dirty” energy projects by spending more than three hundred times as much backing fossil fuel energy compared with clean energy projects via the government’s export credit agency.

In the coalition agreement, the Tories and Lib Dems promised in 2010 that UK Export Finance (UKEF), a small government department, would “become champions for British companies that develop and export innovative green technologies around the world, instead of supporting investment in dirty fossil fuel energy production”.

But over the course of the parliament, the department has given financial support worth just £3.6m to green energy projects around the world, data released to the Guardian under freedom of information rules shows.

By comparison, UKEF allocated £1.13bn to help fossil fuel energy operations in the same period, 314 times more. The support was in the form of loans, loan guarantees and other export credit support.

Under a definition of green technologies used by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – which includes non-energy related deals, such as water purification and waste plants – the total spent on ‘green’ credit export guarantees rises to £73m. The fossil fuel spend also rises, to £1.7bn, when projects beyond just energy, such as petrochemical plants, are counted.

UKEF is a ministerial department that reports to Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat business secretary, and uses public money to financially support British businesses abroad.

Financing worth £528m went to companies working on oil exploration with Brazil’s Petrobras, whose boss recently quit over a corruption scandal, and a £330m loan was was awarded to Rolls Royce for a gas power project with Russia’s Gazprom. Companies working with coal miners in Russia were among the other fossil fuel schemes to benefit.

A single deal accounts for most of the green energy support – a £3.2m bond support scheme for cables for an offshore windfarm in Germany. Other financial help includes £38,388 for companies working on a hydro project in Tanzania and £153,335 for a solar power scheme in Kuwait.

Greenpeace UK climate and energy campaigner Lawrence Carter said: “The coalition government promised to use export subsidies to promote clean energy. Instead ministers have been acting like merchant bankers for the fossil fuel industry, wasting taxpayers’ money on Russian coal mining and the Saudi oil industry, whilst leaving only spare change for Britain’s cutting-edge clean technologies.

“With public concerns about climate change on the rise, ministers will have a hard time explaining to voters why they are being asked to fund the dirtiest industries on the planet whilst short-changing green energy.”

A spokeswoman for UKEF said it was reflecting market demand: “UK Export Finance’s role is to provide financial support to UK exporters, primarily through providing insurance to exporters and guarantees to banks that enable them to take advantage of overseas contracts. Many renewable or green technologies being exported use UKEF to primarily support exports of goods and services sold on short terms of credit, which tend to be smaller in value than large scale projects. It’s also important to remember that we respond to demand in the market from businesses wanting to use our services.”

The figures come a day after campaigners obtained confidential Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) documents that revealed export credits by rich countries provided almost $15bn in funding for coal plants and mining around the world between 2003 and 2013. The UK is a member of the export credit division of the OECD, which is examining whether it should put limits on financing for projects which do not meet greenhouse gas emissions standards.

Earlier this month, the French government reiterated its pledge to stop all financing of coal projects abroad through the use of export credits, though it has yet to put a timeframe on the move.

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Landlords to be banned from letting draughtiest homes

Neil — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 15:12:26 +0000

New energy efficiency regulations could help around a million tenants who are currently paying £1,000 more than average on their energy bills.

Landlords will be banned from renting out England and Wales’ draughtiest homes from 2018 in a bid to cut energy bills and carbon emissions. The new regulations are expected to help around a million tenants who are paying as much as £1,000 a year more than the average annual bill of £1,265 because of poorly insulated homes.

Campaigners hailed the move as potentially the most significant piece of legislation in a generation aimed at improving building stock in England and Wales, which is some of the oldest and leakiest in Europe.

Ed Davey, the energy and climate secretary, will present the regulations in parliament on Thursday. They will force landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of hundreds of thousands of homes currently rated F and G to a minimum of E by 1 April 2018 – or face being unable to let them until they improve the rating. Almost 10% of England and Wales’ 4.2m privately rented homes currently fall below the E rating.

The regulations also mean that from 1 April 2016, tenants living in F- and G-rated homes will be able to request improvements such as more insulation. The landlord will then be legally bound to bring the home up to an E-rating.

“This is a very big measure. Effectively, we’re saying, if you do not improve your property up to the minimum of EPC

[Energy Performance Certificate] E rating by three years’ time, you will not be able to let out that property. Which is quite a big stick, and it’s about time too. It’s really going to make a massive difference between now and the end of the decade,” Davey told the Guardian. “We’re talking about the deepest fuel poverty, and we’re going after it hard, because it’s frankly unacceptable in this day and age.”

Davey said he wished the regulations had been brought in earlier – the proposal dates back to 2010 – but battles within the coalition had delayed it. “Not everyone in this government wants more regulation. But in energy efficiency, regulations play a crucial role.”

While Davey would not put an estimate on the overall cost to landlords for bringing 400,000 homes up to scratch, he said an impact assessment would be published and that there were a range of support mechanisms such as the green deal and ECO schemes that could alleviate upfront costs for landlords.

If a tenant requests a more efficient home and a landlord fails to comply, the landlord could ultimately be forced to pay a penalty notice. Landlords will be able to let out F- and G-rated properties beyond 1 April 2018 for the remainder of existing rental contracts, but will not be able to renew a contract or let the property to someone else until it is brought up to an E rating.

John Alker, acting CEO of the UK Green Building Council, said: “This could be the single most significant piece of legislation to affect our existing building stock in a generation, affecting a huge swath of rented properties. Government deserves huge credit for sticking to its guns. Some will undoubtedly cry ‘red tape’, but good landlords and forward-thinking property companies have nothing to fear.”

Richard Lambert, CEO of the National Landlords Association, welcomed the regulations. “The government has struck a delicate balance between making clear what is expected and ensuring that there is a realistic prospect of landlords being able to comply. Setting the standard at a sensible rather than aspirational level, allowing time to achieve it, and granting exemptions if the necessary improvements cannot be funded through the green deal or other government subsidies mean that these new regulations will not impose an unreasonable burden.”

Sophie Neuburg, energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said the regulations needed strengthening: “With a government so deeply opposed to new regulation, the introduction of minimum standards is a step forward for tenants forced to live in heat-leaking homes. However, these regulations do not go nearly far enough and must be significantly strengthened in future to ensure struggling households are properly protected from poorly-insulated poor-quality housing.”

Separately, an analysis published this week by the Association for the Conservation of Energy concluded that the number of UK-wide energy efficiency measures installed this winter are on track to be 80% lower than those installed in the winter of 2011/12. In 2013, the government scrapped previous energy efficiency support schemes and introduced the green deal, which MPs have condemned as a failure.

In a letter published last weekend, the CEO of the Federation of Master Builders, the director of the charity Age UK, the vice-president of NUS and dozens of other organisations called on party leaders to make a commitment in their election manifestos to spend more on energy efficiency improvements. “High energy bills are causing suffering for millions of families across Britain, especially those on low incomes. Britain has some of the least energy-efficient homes in Europe,” they said.

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