HHIC Journal - Issue 16 by Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA)

THE MAGAZINE OF THE HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL

HHIC

HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL

NOVEMBER 2011 ISSUE16

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Where there’s muck, there’s

Sentinel System Filter, the solid, reliable, cost effective solution to shifting all types of system debris. A compact, robust, fully sealed brass unit, the Sentinel System Filter is quick and easy to fit and is also long lasting, helping to eliminate those un-wanted call backs, saving you time and your customer money. The unit removes all debris, not just magnetic, protecting the boiler and maintaining design efficiencies. With no moving parts it’s quick and easy to clean and maintain. With no magnets to remove there is no need to dismantle and no valves to shut off, minimising leaks. Sentinel System Filter is designed for use in conjunction with the X800 and X100 flushing and protection process to achieve optimum cleaning, improve performance and maximise efficiency.

www.sentinel-solutions.net

1_WP_Sentinel Performance 1

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>> SIGNPOST

> CONTENTS << CONTENTS

WELCOME

FROM YOUR EDITOR HHIC Camden House, Warwick Road, Kenilworth Warwickshire CV8 1TH Tel: 01926 513777 Fax: 01926 511923 e-mail:info@hhic.org.uk Website: www.centralheating.co.uk SECRETARIAT Director Roger Webb Tel. 01926 513740 e-mail: roger@hhic.org.uk Deputy Director Chris Yates Tel. 01926 513744 e-mail: chris.yates@hhic.org.uk Technical Manager Glyn Thomas Tel. 01926 513746 e-mail: glyn@hhic.org.uk Technical Manager John Beer Tel. 01926 513745 e-mail: johnb@hhic.org.uk Membership Services Manager Isaac Occhipinti Tel. 01926 513742 e-mail: isaac@hhic.org.uk Communications Manager Jodie Wiltshire Tel. 01926 513743 e-mail: editor@hhic.org.uk Administrator Natalie Flay Tel. 01926 513741 e-mail: natalie@hhic.org.uk ADVERTISING Advertising Sales Katrina Browning 01778. 395022 e-mail: katrinab@warnersgroup.co.uk Production Co-ordinator Sue Woodgates 01778 392062 e-mail: productionc@warnersgroup.co.uk PUBLISHING Publishers & Printers Warners Group Publications plc, The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, PE10 9PH. Tel: 01778 393313 Fax: 01778 394748 DEVELOPMENT PUBLISHER Juliet Loiselle DESIGN Helen Mackenzie If you are interested in submitting editorial for HHIC Journal, please contact the Editor, Jodie Wiltshire on 01926 513743. or e-mail editor@hhic.org.uk The Editor reserves the right to withhold or edit any material submitted for publication. The Editor’s decision is ﬁnal. Views expressed in HHIC Journal are not necessarily the ofﬁcial view of the Heating & Hotwater Industry Council. The inclusion of advertising, circulation of any advertising literature or enclosures with HHIC Journal does not signify HHIC endorsement of any of the products or items concerned.

Bishop Desmond Tutu said:“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” In this ‘people’ issue, we have some distinguished contributors who are doing exactly that. Professor Peter Wadhams is the UK’s top Oceanographer and talks about the present thinning and retreat of Arctic sea ice as one of the most serious consequences of global warming. Age UK’s Special Advisor, Mervyn Kohler wants the fuel poor to become top of the government’s Green Deal agenda. Andy Atkins, Executive Director from Friends of the Earth calls for greater action to tackle rising fuel bills and Cllr Andrew Cooper tells us more about his award winning Kirklees Warm Zone scheme. Not forgetting Bjorn Lomborg on the myth of green energy security; Jeremy Leggett reﬂecting on 13 years of ﬁghting for solar in the UK; Juliet Davenport from Good Energy and our very own Roger Webb, HHIC’s Director who reveals more about his complex role representing the heating industry. Jodie Wiltshire, EDITOR, editor@hhic.org.uk, Twitter: @JodieCommsHHIC

CONTENTS NOVEMBER 2011

FEATURES

ARCTIC SEA ICE MELT AND GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

Professor Peter Wadhams explains why the arctic ice is thinning

THE FUEL POOR MUST BECOME TOP OF THE GOVERNMENT’S GREEN DEAL AGENDA

Age UK’s special advisor, Mervyn Kohler discusses how government initiatives must help the elderly out of fuel poverty

THE MYTH OF GREEN ENERGY SECURITY

Bjorn Lomborg discusses why energy security policies must have more rigorous scrutiny

IT’S TIME TO BREAK THE BACK OF THE BIG SIX

10 21

Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth reveals its Final Demand campaign to highlight rising fuel bills

THE FACE OF HHIC – ROGER WEBB

REFLECTIONS ON 13 YEARS OF FIGHTING FOR SOLAR IN THE UK

Jeremy Leggett, founder of Solarcentury talks about how the solar market took off in the UK

GREEN DEAL – THE CHALLENGE FROM KIRKLEES WARM ZONE

Cllr, Andrew Cooper looks back at what works in how to deliver large scale energy efﬁciency programmes

GOOD ENERGY

Juliet Davenport and why Good Energy is a catalyst for change in the energy industry

REGULARS

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MARKET UPDATE

MEMBERS NEWS

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>> PROFESSOR PETER WADHAMS

By Peter Wadhams Professor of Ocean Physics Department of Applied Mathmatics and Theoretical Physics University of Cambridge, UK. 4 NOVEMBER 2011

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PROFESSOR PETER WADHAMS <<

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>> PROFESSOR PETER WADHAMS Professor Wadhams is Britain’s top oceanographer and is most famous among scientists for his research work aboard a British sub in 1996. This project revealed that Arctic ice had thinned by 40 per cent since the 1970s. His fifth voyage in a polar submarine aboard HMS Tireless accomplished an important scientific programme obtaining the first 3D maps of the ice underside with a multibeam sonar. He leads the Polar Ocean Physics group studying the effects of global warming on sea ice, icebergs and the polar oceans. This involves work in the Arctic and Antarctic from nuclear submarines, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), icebreakers, aircraft and drifting ice camps. He has led over 40 polar field expeditions. He began his career in ocean science as a research assistant for a year aboard the Canadian research ship “Hudson” on the “Hudson-70” expedition (1969-70) which accomplished the first circumnavigation of the Americas. Later he was Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge (1987-92) before moving to his present position. He has been awarded the Polar Medal by HM the Queen, and the Italgas Prize for Environmental Sciences. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, and a Member of the Finnish Academy. Shrinking and thinning The present thinning and retreat of Arctic sea ice is one of the most serious geophysical consequences of global warming and is causing a major change to the face of our planet. We are all used to the Arctic Ocean being seen as a permanently frozen cap over the top of the Earth, connecting North America and Asia into a single northern hemisphere supercontinent. Now, suddenly, we have to realise that it is, after all, an ocean. During the summer the top of the Earth looks blue instead of white when seen from space, as the sea ice shrinks back to expose a large fraction of the Arctic Ocean as open water. Soon the entire Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in summer, and the sea ice will become a seasonal cover, just like the Antarctic is now. Although sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has been in slow retreat since the 1950s at a rate of 2.8-4.3% per decade as measured from microwave satellites, the annual-averaged rate speeded up to 10.7% per decade

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from 1996 onwards while the summer extent has shrunk even faster. In September 2007 the ice area reached 4.1 million sq km, a record low and more than 1 million sq km less than in the previous record year of 2005. After a brief rally during 2008-10 the extent again shrank in 2011 to match the 2007 record, while the continued thinning of the ice cover means that the sea ice volume in (September 2011) is probably the lowest since the last interglacial. The thinning that accompanies this shrinkage has been measured by the use of upward sonar from submarines, both US and British. I was aboard the last UK submarine voyage, in March 2007, when we ﬁtted a multibeam sonar to give a complete 3-dimensional picture of the ice underside. Our voyage was marred by an accident in which an oxygen generator exploded, killing two members of the crew and causing a ﬁre, all while we were under the ice. Nevertheless the data gathering was very successful and

showed a continuing trend towards thinner ice over the whole Arctic Basin. The mean ice thickness has decreased by more than 45% in the 30 years between the early 1970s and 2000s. This means that the ice grows less thick during the winter and melts more during the summer: the balance between them used to be such that part of the ice thickness remained, so that most of the ice which had grown from open water in its first winter (called first-year ice, or FY) survived into the next winter when it would grow thicker still (multi-year ice, or MY). Today, melt rates of up to 2 metres from the ice bottom have been observed in the Beaufort Sea, in an area where FY ice only grows to 1.6 m, so clearly most FY ice will disappear in summer. This produces two feedbacks. If much of the ice melts in summer, then the ice cover by the end of the next winter will be comprised mainly of FY ice, which is more vulnerable to melt, and this change is irreversible. Passive microwave satellites, which can detect the difference between FY and MY ice, have shown a rapid shrinkage of the MY fraction in recent years, with MY ice surviving only in a core region north of Ellesmere Island. The second feedback is the fact that the increased open water in summer absorbs much more short wave radiation from the sun – its albedo, the fraction reflected out into space, is less than 15% while that of snowcovered ice is 80-90%. This causes the Arctic Ocean’s surface water to itself heat up, increasing the melt rate still further. Already we are seeing consequences from these changes.

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PROFESSOR PETER WADHAMS << The new large area of open water warms to 4-5°C during summer, which not only delays the onset of autumn freezing but also warms the seabed over the continental shelf areas, helping to melt offshore permafrost. One consequence of this melt is the release from the seabed of trapped methane hydrates, causing methane plumes which have global warming potential. Already such plumes have been directly observed in the East Siberian Sea and the curve of global atmospheric methane content has undergone a small upward blip after being stable for some years. Molecule for molecule, methane is 23 times as potent as CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and there have been warnings that a major methane outbreak may be imminent, with release from offshore permafrost melt being joined by releases from the

active layer of sodden carboniferous material which lies under the Arctic tundra but above the buried permafrost layer. This active layer, which generates methane, has grown thicker as the air temperature has warmed. A further consequence is that the large area of open water in summer allows a wind fetch sufficient to create substantial wave energy input to the ice edge, which causes wave-induced ice break-up into floes so as to create a classic marginal ice zone (MIZ).The term MIZ has always been applied to the Greenland Sea and to the Antarctic ice margin, where enormous wave energies break the ice up into floes, but now the open water in the Arctic Ocean is enough to create a new summer MIZ. Again the breakup of ice which takes place, creates another positive feedback leading to more rapid summer ice edge retreat.

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A challenging characteristic of the summer sea ice extent is that its decay has exceeded the predictions of models. The observed extent began to deviate from the ensemble mean of models used by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the 1970s and by the 1990s it was more than one standard deviation less than

“I was aboard the last UK submarine voyage, in March 2007, when we ﬁtted a multibeam sonar to give a complete 3-dimensional picture of the ice underside. Our voyage was marred by an accident in which an oxygen generator exploded, killing two members of the crew and causing a ﬁre, all while we were under the ice.”

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>> PROFESSOR PETER WADHAMS

the mean. The 2007 extent was less than the most extreme member of the ensemble. These results strongly suggest that existing climate models are inadequate in predicting Arctic sea ice extent and that some important physics is missing. In fact, if we replace the sophisticated, but inaccurate, models of IPCC by simpler extrapolations of current trends in area and thickness, we find that the September sea ice cover will vanish altogether about 20152016 with, ominously, a vanishing of the winter sea ice cover not many years later. Strangely, the area of Antarctic sea ice is presently increasing slowly, at about half the rate that the Arctic is shrinking. In a warming world, this behaviour is as difficult to understand as is the rapid shrinkage of Arctic ice, which so much exceeds model predictions. All we can conclude is that that the floating ice sheets which cover each end of our planet are not the permanent, predictable features that we thought we were dealing with when scientists first properly explored and measured these regions in the 1950s and 1960s.

8 OCTOBER 2011

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“The present thinning and retreat of Arctic sea ice is one of the most serious geophysical consequences of global warming and is causing a major change to the face of our planet.” Are we at a tipping point? There are many possible deﬁnitions of a tipping point for an environmental parameter, but the one which I will adopt is that it occurs when a parameter which has been stressed beyond a certain level will not return to its original state when that stress is removed, but migrates to a new state. A parameter which has reached a tipping point is thus like a wire which has been stretched beyond its elastic limit, so that its further deformation is a creep process with a strain rate which does not allow the wire to return

to its original length when the stress is removed. Has Arctic sea ice reached a tipping point? I believe that it has, and for the following reason. We know that the area of MY ice in the Arctic during the winter is diminishing year on year. If this trend continues to prevail, a greater area of sea ice will melt completely year on year, since FY ice grows more slowly than in the past, melts more rapidly and permits a greater area of warming water to be ice free every year. Once the ice cover has completely gone in a given summer, the following winter’s ice will be all FY, and will then melt again in the following summer. So there is no chance for a substantial MY ice cover to re-form. The tipping point, to be more exact, occurs when the summer melt rate versus winter growth rate becomes such that all FY ice melts during the summer. Then no FY ice is promoted to MY ice in October, and the MY fraction in the Arctic cannot increase but must continue to decrease until there is none left. Then the Arctic, for ever afterwards, will have a seasonal ice cover, like today’s Antarctic.

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>> MERVYN KOHLER, AGE UK

THE FUEL POOR OF THE GOVERNMENT’S

By Mervyn Kohler, Special Advisor at Age UK

10 NOVEMBER 2011

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MERVYN KOHLER, AGE UK <<

Mervyn Kohler is Special Adviser at Age UK representing the Charity on numerous coalition and stakeholder groups, participating in conferences and seminars and acting as a media spokesperson. Mervyn joined Help the Aged in 1984 where he worked as Head of Public Affairs. As the political and social agenda has mushroomed he has become a tireless and much respected campaigner on issues relating to older people, drawing on years of experience of Westminster, Whitehall and the political world. He has a particular interest in the social and economic challenges of the ageing society and has been on the trustee board of a number of charities and on several public bodies and currently serves on the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group.

n July the government released the latest fuel poverty figures which made shocking reading. The number of homes living in fuel poverty in 2009 was up by 700,000 on the previous year’s figure to 5.5million and approximately half of those are households of older people. The primary driver for this upward acceleration is the escalating costs of domestic energy, which has swamped the efforts of public and private initiatives to address the underlying problem of a national housing stock that haemorrhages energy. The net result is that our older population will be anticipating another winter of misery. One third of all older households are in fuel poverty, defined as spending more than a tenth of income on fuel, with a large part of the remainder not far from that situation. These people will face serious pressures on their meagre households’ budgets with not only energy prices continuing to spiral upwards, but food prices – which are sensitive and closely geared to energy prices – following suit. There is more to this predicament than ‘simply’ the misery and unhappiness, of older people struggling to keep warm by wearing coats and hats indoors, living in just one room which can be kept moderately warm, and spending days in bed because it is too cold to get out. Over the past few years, there has been a growing volume of evidence about the tangible effects on health of living in a cold, damp home. Professor Marmot’s unrivalled public health team published a report earlier this year showing how cold homes impact on the health of all age groups, but amongst older people: • There is a relationship between excess winter deaths, low thermal efficiency of housing and low temperature; • There is a strong relationship between cold temperatures and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases; • Mental health is affected by living in cold homes across all age groups; • For adults of all ages, but particularly older people, there are clear measurable effects of cold housing on physical health, well-

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being and self-assessed general health, in particular for vulnerable adults and those with existing health conditions; • For older people, there were measurable effects from cold housing in terms of higher mortality risk, physical health and mental health; • Cold housing increases the level of minor illnesses such as colds and flu, and exacerbates existing conditions such as arthritis and rheumatism; • Fuel poverty restricts people’s incomes, and thus their choice of foods and their proper nourishment. The government’s response to this, perversely, has been to cut Warm Front, the one publically funded programme in England which was addressing domestic energy efficiency. While the 2009 fuel poverty data for England showed a rise in that single year of 700,000 households in fuel poverty, the newly truncated Warm Front, which delivers energy efficiency improvements, will struggle to reach more than 100,000 homes in the next two years. The pared down programme will no longer be offering benefit entitlement checks either, which opened the door to many households to claim meanstested benefits they were entitled to but not receiving. On the household income front, the Winter Fuel Payment this year will revert to its ‘normal’ level after three winters being paid at a one-off enhanced level: the ‘normal’ level was set in 2003 when energy costs were half of their present level. The government has tried to respond to the worsening situation by legislating for a Winter Homes Discount – an annual discount of £120 on the energy bill for those households receiving the Pension Credit Guarantee. So far so good for the 600,000 that currently receive it, but one third of entitled pensioners do not claim this benefit. And that £120 will be roughly the same as the level of increases an average household will face as a result of the recent round of energy price increases. Furthermore, it will be funded by the energy supply

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>> MERVYN KOHLER, AGE UK

“One of the problems for older, fuel poor households is that the whole world of energy supply and energy efﬁciency has become very complex.”

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MERVYN KOHLER, AGE UK << companies as one of the various social and environmental obligations which will ultimately be paid for through consumer bills – including the bills of those in fuel poverty. At the same time, these new price increases will swell the VAT revenues accruing to the Treasury,

perhaps amounting to as much as £250m. The Treasury seems happy to trouser this. The promised answer will, the government soothes, lie in the Green Deal and the new Energy Company Obligation to support it (another impost on consumer bills, of course). This will be a new and untested package, and older households may struggle to understand what it involves and how it might work to their advantage. The energy supply companies are lining up to be the accredited Green Deal Providers – the intermediaries which will manage the scheme in a seamless and consumer-friendly way. We will know soon how much of the Green Deal will be focused on households in fuel poverty and how much on hard-totreat houses – the latter, such as solid wall housing, is ill-served by present policies and incentives, but will be an important market to develop to stimulate new insulation technologies as well as domestic renewable solutions. But given the latest fuel poverty ﬁgures, should the Green Deal be prioritising this group, or the poor households really struggling with energy bills? The strong preference from Age UK would be to have the emphasis, at least in the initial years of the scheme, on the fuel poor. One of the problems for older, fuel poor households is that the whole world of energy supply and energy efficiency has become very complex. Consumer choice is a fine watchword, but consumers need knowledge before they can make sensible choices, and the plethora of different tariffs and schemes is bewildering. The people inside the energy industry often communicate to the public about the shape of products and services in a disempowering language which too frequently characterises a professional clique. Older people are struggling hard enough to organise their normal lives without rustling up the time or the hunger to master this rapidly changing world. And if they need a computer to begin to understand it, then they start disabled at first base since two thirds of older households have never used the internet.

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Companies, particularly those aspiring to be Green Deal providers, need to develop and improve the way in which they communicate with ‘ordinary’ households. Older households are a significant part of the ordinary household market with one third of all households is headed by a person over the state pension age. Clearly the government has much it needs to reconsider, especially when it still acknowledges that it has a target to eradicate fuel poverty by 2016 (a target set by Parliament in 2000 – not a goal set by a previous government). But in the context of the current policy mix, the energy companies have also got a huge role to play, and it will be important that they see supporting older, poorer people as part of their duty – not just their legal obligation, but their commitment to good practice and being responsible companies. Age UK certainly hopes the Green Deal will work as we need a major assault on our poor housing stock to make the lives of their current inhabitants better as well as for both the future of energy stability in the UK and the wider ramiﬁcations of global warming. The prospects for this winter, however, look like business as usual. Come the inevitable cold spell, Age UK will be counselling people to keep warm with various tips and suggestions, and urging local communities to be aware of the plight of their older neighbours. And more people will be miserable, see their health and well-being eroded, and some will become excess winter deaths. Thus stands Britain in 2011.

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>> MARKET SIGNPOST INDUSTRY UPDATE UPDATE

MARKET UPDATE

Each quarter we will bring you an update on the heating market, with a focus on boiler sales. This update replaces the quarterly Boiler Sales Update which HHIC used to distribute as a separate publication.

Highlights • Boiler sales decline • Solar Thermal sales drop as wait for RHI goes on

any analysts are expecting a tough year ahead for the heating industry and in the second quarter of 2011 that tough year arrived. Sales levels dropped to unprecedented levels, numbers not seen since the 2005 slump.All the indications are that the squeeze on consumer spending has hit the heating industry with consumers possibly preferring to repair their old boiler rather than replacing it with a new one. However the sales numbers for July and August were beginning to return to the seasonal norm, which could indicate that consumers were still preparing to buy once the cold weather hits. The numbers had been pointing to a bright summer for Solar Thermal, however the delay in announcing the RHPP and continued uncertainty over the RHI have held the market back.The losses looked to have continued over the summer, traditionally the high point for the market, which all paints a gloomy picture.With consumers rushing to ﬁt Solar PV panels before the change in Feed in Tariffs, solar thermal has been sidelined for the time being. However, with RHI and Green Deal to launch next year, this dip should be short-lived, however, ﬁrm commitments on RHI are needed soon.

ECOMOMIC OVERVIEW The heating market is inﬂuenced by a range of factors many of which involve decisions based on economic factors. Some of these are outlined below.

Inﬂation Recent changes in RPI and CPI annual rates were as follows: Apr 11

May 11

June 11

CPI change (%)

4.5

4.2

RPI change (%)

5.2

5.0

14 NOVEMBER 2011

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Gas Boiler Sales Q2 2011 v Q2 2010 Q2 2011 Apr

May

Q2 2010

Q2 11 – Q3 10

% change

Total boiler sales (000’s)

119.4 104.5 111.9 141.7 122.3 116.6 1550.7

1578.0

-1.7%

% condensing

98.9

98.4

Jun

99.1

Apr

98.7

May

Annual Comparison

99.2

Jun

99.3

98.9

Solar Thermal Heating Sales by m2 Q2 2011 v Q2 2010 Q2 2011

Q2 2010

% change

Q2 2011 – Q3 2010

Q2 2010 – Q3 2009

% change

Flat Plate

17448.09

17892.5

-2.48%

70888.61

59152.54

+19.8%

Vacuum tube

5402.13

5395.54

+0.12%

17570.96

17925.88

-2.0%

Total

22850.22

23288

-1.88%

88459.57

77078.48

+14.8%

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INDUSTRY MARKET UPDATE << CONTENTS registered (7% higher than the comparable figure in 2010), a figure boosted by registrations for new homes at the Athletes’ Village. Healthy registrations in June ahead of the summer building period also contributed to the number of registrations during Q2 2011 being 11% higher than Q2 2010 (33,820, Apr-Jun 2011 compared to 30,597, Apr-Jun 2010). Statistics for the first half of 2011, from January - June, show that: • Private sector registrations were up 6% (to 40,700) when compared with the same period a year ago (38,389) • Public sector registrations were also up by 15%, from 20,182 to 23,132 NHBC statistics for the rolling quarter April - June 2011 show that: The headlines for the June 2011 consumer prices index (CPI) are: • The main downward pressure to annual inflation came from recreation and culture, particularly games, toys and hobbies and, to a lesser extent, audio visual equipment where there was price discounting on some products • The main upward pressures to annual inflation came from a variety of food products • Annual inflation as recorded by the retail prices index (RPI) stands at 5.0 per cent in June, down from 5.2 per cent in May. Source: Office for National Statistics

Interest Rates The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee voted to maintain the ofﬁcial Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5%. Source: Bank of England

Domestic Fuel Prices The most recent ﬁgures available from the Department for Energy & Climate Change (DECC) are for Q2 2011 and these are compared with Q2 2010.

In current terms, the prices paid for all fuel and light have risen by 7.3 per cent between Q2 2010 and Q2 2011. Prices rose by 0.9 per cent in current terms between Q1 and Q2 2011. Domestic electricity prices, including VAT, rose by 4.0 per cent in current terms in the year to Q2 2011. Domestic gas prices, including VAT, rose by 6.2 per cent in current terms in the year to Q2 2011. The price of coal and smokeless fuels increased in current terms by 3.7 per cent and the price of heating oils increased by 28.8 per cent between Q2 2010 and Q2 2011 in current terms. Source: DECC

Domestic Fuel Prices Indices: Gas

Electricity

Heating oils

Q2 2011

190.4

161.0

206.0

Q2 2010

179.4

157.7

160.0

% comparison

+6.2

+4.0

+28.8

House Prices 2010

2011

Apr

£167,802

£165,609

May

£169,162

£167,208

Jun

£170,111

£168,205

Average

£168,719

£166,764

“Across the UK, prices rose by just 0.2% in the second quarter of 2011, resulting in a further deterioration in the annual rate of change to -1.2%. “Whilst 8 out of 13 regions saw price rises during the quarter, this was not sufﬁcient to keep annual growth positive, with prices down on the same period last year in all regions apart from London.” Source: Nationwide

New Build Homes

Housing and Property Transactions The total number of property transactions was down to 65,000 in June 2011, a drop of 13.3%. Source Construction Products Association

Latest data from NHBC reveals a steady level of new home registrations in the first six months of 2011, but shows there is still a way to go for the housing market. According to the figures, housebuilders registered 9% more new homes during the first half of this year compared to the same period in 2010 (63,832 Jan-Jun 2011 compared to 58,571 Jan - Jun 2010). In Q1 2011, 30,012 new homes were

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•Private sector registrations were up 8% (to 21,608) when compared with the same period a year ago (19,977) • Public sector registrations were also up by 15%, from 10,620 to 12,212 Source NHBC

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>> BJORN LOMBORG

Photo by Emil Jupin

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By Bjorn Lomborg HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL

19/10/11 15:13:01

BJORN LOMBORG <<

Bjorn Lomborg is adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School. He is the organiser of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which brings together some of the world’s top economists, including 5 Nobel laureates, to set priorities for the world. Time magazine named Lomborg one of the world’s 100 most inﬂuential people in 2004. In 2008 he was named “one of the 50 people who could save the planet” by the UK Guardian; “one of the top 100 public intellectuals” by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine; and “one of the world’s 75 most inﬂuential people of the 21st century” by Esquire. Bjorn Lomborg is also the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It.

urmoil across the Middle East and Northern Africa has refocused attention on the impact that political tensions or interference can have on the price and availability of energy imports. Against consumer fears of gas-price hikes, energy security ranks high on many Western governments’ policy agendas. Of course, this is hardly a new phenomenon: Europe started trying to build up its energy reserves back in the 1960’s. Likewise, every American president since Richard Nixon in the early 1970’s has tried, and failed, to reduce dependence on foreign oil. A new trend, though, is that policies that just a few years ago were being touted to fight climate change are being presented as a necessary way to increase energy security. Against the backdrop of the financial crisis, and as public support for climatechange policies scrapes new lows in many developed countries, we hear less from leaders about the threat of global warming and more about the supposed economic benefits of climate policies. This shift is hardly surprising, given the increasing number of analyses that demonstrate that current – unilateral – climate policies will have virtually no impact on the rise in global temperature.

The European Union offers a classic illustration of this point. Its “20-2020” climate plan – by far the most comprehensive climate-change policy in effect anywhere – aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020, ensure that renewable energy delivers 20% of energy consumption, and cut primary energy use by 20%. An analysis of the costs and beneﬁts of the policy in 2010 by climate economist Richard Tol showed that the annual price tag would be around €210 billion. Running the policy through the RICE climate-economic model reveals that by the end of this century, it will reduce temperature rises by just 0.05°C (0.1ºF). Undaunted by the policy’s utterly feeble impact on global warming, politicians have declared that the policy will at least enhance the EU’s energy security. So the Copenhagen Consensus Center asked Professor Christoph Böhringer and Andreas Keller of the University of Oldenburg to test this claim. Of course, the notion of energy security is fuzzy. In their research paper, “Energy Security: An Impact Assessment of the EU Climate and Energy Package,” Böhringer and Keller note that the EU has never set itself a clear metric for energy security.

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Despite – or because of – this lack of definition and measurability, policymakers, write Böhringer and Keller,“exploit the energy security argument to justify a myriad of measures.” Such measures even include bans on light bulbs and patio heaters, tax breaks for bicycle owners, standards for tire pressure, and tests for fuel-efficient driving – none of which would appear to have much impact on the level of Russian or Middle Eastern oil imports. What is clear, according to Böhringer and Keller, is that the EU Climate and Energy Package violates basic principles of cost-effectiveness, if the sole objective is emission reduction. The package stands out for its tangle of instruments – and thus the risk of counterproductive, overlapping regulation, which will substantially increase costs compared to an effective climate policy. The researchers measure the impact of the 20-20-20 package through independent energy security indices. Without implementation of the package, slightly more than half of Europe’s energy needs would be met by imported fossil fuel by 2020, compared to 50% today. If the EU is successful in reducing CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020, Böhringer and Keller find that its reliance on imported fossil fuel would be reduced by just two percentage points. This is an awfully long way from self-reliance. Of course, the EU 20-20-20 plan aims to do more than just reduce emissions; it also attempts to increase renewable-energy use and cut overall energy consumption. The researchers find that the full 20-20-20 plan would actually mean “increased energy imports as well as increased price risks” – mainly because the tax imposed on electricity to achieve the efficiency target of the 20-20-20 plan will affect nuclear power the most. In other words, the very policy that was supposed to achieve greater energy security is in fact likely to hike prices and lead to greater reliance on foreign energy imports.

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>> BJORN LOMBORG

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BJORN LOMBORG <<

“Turmoil across the Middle East and Northern Africa has refocused attention on the impact that political tensions or interference can have on the price and availability of energy imports. Against consumer fears of gas-price hikes, energy security ranks high on many Western governments’ policy agendas.”

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>> BJORN LOMBORG It is worth noting that these outcomes are based on the optimistic reference scenario used in the US Department of Energy’s International Energy Outlook, under which renewable-energy use will grow at a higher rate than in the past. Without this expectation, the EU’s policy would likely be even more costly. In many Western countries, policies are increasingly being wrapped in promises of greater energy security rather than in threats of climate catastrophes. But, because energy security is such a vague concept, these policies are seldom subjected to rigorous scrutiny to determine whether they will live up to politicians’ claims. As the new research shows, we should be especially cautious about the claims of politicians who use current events to justify the old, ineffective climate-change policies on the new and equally problematic basis of energy security. This article was ﬁrst published in May 2011 by Project Syndicate, the world’s pre-eminent source of opinion editorial commentaries by prominent world leaders and opinion makers. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011. www.project-syndicate.org

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“Such measures even include bans on light bulbs and patio heaters, tax breaks for bicycle owners, standards for tire pressure, and tests for fuel-efﬁcient driving – none of which would appear to have much impact on the level of Russian or Middle Eastern oil imports.”

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o k c

B i g e S h t ix f

a k e r t h b e o t b a e

ANDY ATKINS, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH <<

I t ' s t i

By Andy Atkins, Executive Director of friends of the Earth

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>> ANDY ATKINS, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

Andy is Executive Director of the environmental campaigning organisation Friends of the Earth, where he heads up the organisation’s focus on tackling climate change and the loss of our planet’s natural diversity. He has worked in a wide range of international development charities and has a strong track record of campaigning on environmental and social issues. Before joining Friends of the Earth, Andy was Policy & Campaigns Director at development charity Tearfund, where he oversaw the establishment of policy and campaigns work as a core focus for the organisation. He initiated Tearfund’s work on climate change, ensuring that the organisation was the ﬁrst major development agency to identify climate change as a ‘poverty’ issue and begin campaigning to address the impact of climate change on developing countries. Andy was an organiser and spokesperson for the Make Poverty History campaign and served on the Board of the Stop Climate Chaos charity coalition. He has also worked as Local Groups Coordinator and then General Secretary of the Chile Committee for Human Rights, Coordinator of CAFOD’s Working in Partnership programme and Latin America Desk Ofﬁcer at what is now Progressio. Andy now leads Friends of the Earth’s campaigning for a radical shift in energy production in the UK with its new Final Demand campaign, for action to tackle the environmental impact of the things we buy and use every day and for a strong and fair international agreement to tackle climate change at the September 2011 Durban climate talks. 22 OCTOBER 2011

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he in-tray of any incoming Executive Director at Friends of the Earth is, in many ways, unique – there are very few places where top of the to-do list are huge, planet-sized issues like tackling climate change, fundamentally overhauling the way we generate and use energy and protecting the planet’s endangered species and habitats. Yet these challenges, and more, were top of a long list I was greeted with when I joined Friends of the Earth three years ago. There have been many successes in Friends of the Earth’s 40 year history – doorstep recycling for people up and down the land, and the Climate Change Act, a world first which commits the government to cutting emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, to name just two examples – yet the environment is an issue which continues to grow and grow in importance, to such an extent that humanity’s very future on the planet is at stake. Even just in the past year we have seen a deluge of environmental headlines: the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany committing to phasing out nuclear power, the government’s attempted sell-off of forests, and the now-familiar uproar over soaring energy costs. It’s these costs, in a time of recession, which are driving family finances to breaking point. Friends of the Earth has been listening to the public’s concerns – even when the government which is strongly under the influence of the Big Six energy companies, has not. People want action to tackle rising fuel bills. That’s why we launched our Final Demand campaign in August 2012. People are fed-up with energy companies’ dramatic price hikes and eye-watering profits. That is just one of the reasons we need a fundamental overhaul of the whole energy system. The government is already looking at this very issue, with a new Bill on reforming the energy market currently going through

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CONTENTS ANDY ATKINS, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH <<

“The UK has some of the best potential for renewable energy in the whole of Europe and especially for offshore wind. Tapping it would create thousands of new jobs at a time when we need them more than ever.”

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>> ANDY ATKINS, FRIENDS OF THE EARTH Parliament. Now is a golden opportunity to shape how energy is generated and used in the UK for the next three decades. As supplies of North Sea gas and oil dwindle, we’re being forced to import more from other countries to meet our needs – and with global demand soaring, so are prices. Investing properly in a future powered by renewables means a secure energy supply and stable bills in the long run – a win-win situation for consumers, the economy and for the planet. It’s easy for many – including those at the heart of government – to see this as an impossible task. Yet it is possible – and the government’s own research,

around 20 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources and has hundreds of thousands of people employed in the industry. The path to achieving this will take time – yet it is vital that we begin now. The government must break the stranglehold of the Big Six energy companies, open up the market to smaller energy producers, boost community energy projects and help us to cut the energy we all waste in our homes and businesses to kick start the transition to a greener, cleaner future. Friends of the Earth has already led and won the campaign for the current Feed-In Tariff (FIT) scheme, which

along with that of many independent experts, shows that renewable energy sources can provide all the UK’s energy needs and more. The UK has some of the best potential for renewable energy in the whole of Europe – and especially for offshore wind. Tapping it would create thousands of new jobs at a time when we need them more than ever. The UK could become a world leader in the development of the next generation of renewable power generation. Other countries are already steaming ahead – Germany, for example, already gets

supports the generation of renewable energy with a payment above market rate. Yet the government is reviewing the scheme, with the potential for a slash in funding – leaving the UK’s nascent renewables industry dead in the water and consumers held to ransom by the big energy companies more than ever. Not only that, the government has committed – thanks to Friends of the Earth’s Big Ask campaign – to cut the UK’s carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. As dirty coal power stations come to the end of their life and the

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government considers giving the goahead for a new wave of gas power stations, we must seize the opportunity to comprehensively overhaul our energy system to meet this goal. Powering the country with clean, green renewable energy is the way to do it. A future where the government throws its weight behind massive investment in a clean power system, based on energy efﬁciency, community energy and large scale wind, wave and tidal energy. In less than ten years we can have cheaper bills compared to if we carry on relying on fossil fuels. It’s a goal Friends of the Earth believes is worth ﬁghting for – and

“It’s these costs, in a time of recession, which are driving family ﬁ nances to breaking point.” judging from conversations that I and our supporters have been having up and down the country, so do the public. The UK has the chance to lead the world in a vision of a new clean, green future. We must grasp it.

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THE FACE OF HHIC

ROGER WEBB, HHIC <<

ROGER HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL

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WEBB

By Jodie Wiltshire

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>> ROGER WEBB, HHIC Roger Webb has a degree in Chemical Engineering and spent most of his career with British Gas within the Research & Technologies function which became Advantica. His past career included a variety of roles from graduate engineer, developing novel heat recovery technologies for the industrial gas market through to general manager with complete proﬁt and loss responsibility for an Energy and Environment business unit. He won the prestigious Royal Society/Esso Energy award and a Queen’s Award for Innovation for two energy efﬁciency developments.

“

Togetherness is the purpose of a trade association,” says HHIC director Roger Webb. He is the frontman of the Heating and Hotwater Industry Council - a division of the SBGI trade association that represents the energy and utilities market. This all sounds very cosy but in reality important work is being done in an organisation whose main purpose is bringing speciﬁc businesses together in order to secure standards and increase credibility with the public. Webb adds: “I suppose the general public do not realise all the incredible hard work that trade associations actually do. I think most people have a basic grasp that we represent similar businesses that band together to form an alliance that will allow them to work through complex issues with a trade association. However, there is so much more that we do on a daily basis and our role, mercurial by nature, is determined by government policies. By bringing industry together it removes the immediate commercial pressures from individual companies and becomes a force for good that helps and informs the wider community.” One of HHIC’s greatest strengths is its ability to provide accurate information and guidance to support the industry. It does this by informing its members on relevant legislative/ policy issues and developments and

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responding to consultations on their behalf. An industry trade association participates in public relations activities such as advertising, education, lobbying and publishing. Increasingly, HHIC is raising its proﬁle on many levels. People may raise an inquisitive eyebrow when the role of public relations is mentioned but this is one of the foundations of a successful trade association. Webb explains: “We are very much the voice of the industry and it is paramount that we maintain and increase membership. HHIC is continuously promoting the industry, profession or cause and provides education through media relations. Political lobbying is becoming increasingly necessary in the role we provide on behalf of our members. The main reason for this is the complex and

challenging legislation that can sometimes be industry’s friend or at worst, the enemy.” Webb’s role as director is to lead and direct HHIC by developing strategies and plans. He also oversees the programme of work and coordinates the work of the team to ensure delivery. He is also responsible for governance of HHIC in conjunction with the HHIC Board. Politics is a large part of his role and so he fronts the external representation work whether this is with the government or other key inﬂuencers and stakeholders. He emphasises that his key role is in ensuring that HHIC is the voice of the industry and that this voice is heard. Politics is the ‘people’s business’ so the aspect of political activity in Webb’s role is one where his eloquence and tenacity comes into

“Government policy (UK or EU) has an enormous (and still growing) inﬂuence on the heating market and industry and consequently on the business of all HHIC members. Our members continually press to inﬂuence policy and to have full authoritative and timely information about policy developments. The political role is critically important in delivering a key service to our members.” HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL

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ROGER WEBB, HHIC <<

play. To be able to lobby industry views takes a certain type of person, one who can persuade and ultimately influence the decision makers. Webb says: “Government policy (UK or EU) has an enormous (and still growing) influence on the heating market and industry and consequently on the business of all HHIC members. Our members continually press to influence policy and to have full authoritative and timely information about policy developments. The political role is critically important in delivering a key service to our members.” The type of political lobbying that HHIC is involved with is crucial both indirectly and directly. Direct lobbying occurs by establishing and developing key contacts within the government, parliament and other policy influencers.

There is no typical day as such for Webb which he believes makes the role stimulating and challenging. “My role is dominated by meetings and requires the ability to operate at all social levels. This could be with my team, SBGI, member groups, individual members, external committees, working groups, workshops, conferences, government ofﬁcials or ministers,” he says. Webb’s gregarious personality is apparent as soon as you meet him, fast talking, almost dramatic in his gestures but what is clearly evident is his commitment to HHIC’s members and the industry. The complexity of the role and the workings of the industry do require a steely determination to present members’ issues and channel messages to those who shape legislation.

Image: © Chris Yates

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HHIC has been working tirelessly in regards to the Green Deal, Renewable Heat Incentive, the Renewable Heat Premium Payments and the Eco design and Energy Labelling Directives. Webb explains: “Starting with the work we are doing with the Green Deal which is the government’s main policy to improve the energy efficiency of the UK building stock, the industry has many objectives that need to be met. The Green Deal scheme provides finance to carry out energy efficiency measures and is not a loan in the conventional sense but is attached to the property. This then results in a ‘charge’ which remains with the property even when it is sold. The intention is that the charge will be repaid through the household energy bill. The key requirement called the ‘Golden Rule,’ means that having carried out energy efficiency improvements with Green Deal finance then the new energy bill (reduced cost of energy due to improvements plus the charge on finance) will be less that it was before the energy efficiency improvements were made.” The government aims to improve the building fabric and reduce energy usage by improving insulation. Although the heating industry fully supports the need to improve building fabric and insulate – it would also like to see other heating measures included in the Green Deal. Such measures could include upgrading controls, replacing an old efficient boiler with a condensing model or even installing a low carbon or renewable heating system. He continues: “We are working on behalf of the heating industry and believe that each home should have a full house assessment. Consumers should be provided with options and recommendations for carrying out a range of cost-effective energy efficiency improvements. The Green Deal should be able to provide finance for packages of measures. There are few opportunities to encourage householders to undertake energy efficiency and so it is important that they are made

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>> SIGNPOST ROGER WEBB, HHIC

“His colleagues are not surprised by his courage, which should earn him his own bakery. And what needs no words - they’re behind him every step of the way.” 28 NOVEMBER 2011

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ROGER WEBB, CONTENTS HHIC <<

aware of all the opportunities. The government now seem to recognise the value of the whole house approach which can be more cost-effective to have a number of measures implemented and financed at the same time. The need for a replacement heating system could also provide the trigger in having more energy efficiency measures carried out at the same time, providing that the Green Deal finance was available to offset the cost of the heating system. “In able to meet the heating industry’s objectives all those involved have taken part in a major political lobbying campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of new heating systems and the potential for inclusion in the Green Deal. This resulted in much support from MPs with both written and oral questions in the house and acceptance from Ministers that heating measures would be considered. HHIC was invited to join forums such as the Capacity & Innovation Forum and Eligibility of Measures Task Group and the Green Deal Maximising Energy Efficiency in Buildings Forum which DECC has established to provide input on the design and development of the policy. The team are working hard to ensure that heating measures are included when the work begins on the secondary legislation and how heating measures can meet the Golden Rule.” From July up to 25,000 household heating installations will be supported by a Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Premium Payment. This will help people cover the purchase price of green heating systems such as solar hot water panels or large wood pellet boilers. Those taking up the premium will then able to apply for an RHI tariff when the Green Deal begins. The tariff

will provide fixed annual payments to people who install renewable heating systems. The RHI Premium Payment will be worth around £15m and will be spread across a range of renewable technologies and to all regions of Great Britain. “Although the lobbying work is complicated and time consuming myself and all those working so hard on behalf of the heating industry are finally seeing results which will provide many future benefits for all those concerned and hopefully lead to a much more energy efficient UK,” concludes Webb. From an outsider perspective the challenges and conflicts seem only too apparent. A modern day trade association has to deal with the increasing pressures and external requests its members expect of it. Webb shrugs and adds: “It is the nature of the beast, I suppose. We move with the times or we get left behind and quite frankly in this economic climate, we would be foolish to sit on our laurels. We want our members to be proud of belonging to the HHIC and revel in the successes we bring about by working closely together, in what I know is a very talented team. I also include the much wider team of our member companies who all have their roles to play and each bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table. I suppose we are very lucky in this sense – it gives us an edge on any competition.” Delivering value to the members is the main objective of the HHIC team and this enables them to provide the range of services. But still, despite all the challenges and there are many, Webb remains optimistic: “I have to be really because obstacles just make the challenges even more satisfactory when an outcome is

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achieved”. Being a modest man he doesn’t shout about his achievements but there have certainly been some political successes. “I think we are doing well,” he smiles. “HHIC will continue to forge relationships with the government in the future. We will achieve this by being the organisation to consult and work with, regarding all issues relevant to the heating industry. We will become trusted partners in both the development and the implementation of policy to achieve common goals. It is inevitable that we will not always agree and at times, one will be challenging the other. However, the relationship is sufﬁciently strong and effective to ensure that views and proposals are properly heard and agreed ways forward, result in shared objectives and targets being delivered,” Webb concludes. What makes all the above even more remarkable is that Webb was diagnosed with cancer this year. But like the rest of his challenges this one is also being met head on and with admirable bravery. He continues to bring his usual good humour and sense of fun into the office. Although his treatment plays havoc with his taste buds this does not stop him eating cakes. Webb loves cakes. Between treatments, Webb is working as hard as ever tackling important issues and providing his usual first class service to the members. The daily demands both in his working and private life must require him to find a place that requires the upmost personal strength. Not everyone can reach for this strength or even possess it - that is for certain. His colleagues are not surprised by his courage, which should earn him his own bakery. And what needs no words - they’re behind him every step of the way.

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By Jeremy Leggett

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JEREMY LEGGETT, SOLARCENTURY <<

Jeremy Leggett is the founder and executive chairman of Solarcentury, the UK’s largest independent solar electric company. A geologist by training, he began his career as a consultant for the oil industry, before becoming a campaigner for Greenpeace International. He also serves as a founding director of the world’s ﬁrst private equity fund for renewable energy, Bank Sarasin’s New Energies Invest. From 2002 to 2006, he was a member of the UK Government Renewables advisory board. He is the author of several books, including The Solar Century (2009). He is founder and Chairman of SolarAid, a charity set up by Solarcentury.

he UK solar industry has witnessed enormous change since Solarcentury was established in 1998. Back then and through the long frustrating years of the ﬁrst two Blair led governments no one would have predicted that one day the UK would have a “proper” Feed-in-Tariff, albeit temporarily. Nor would any sane commentator have predicted that by 2010 tens of thousands of UK homes per year would be “going solar” and that many thousands of new green jobs would be delivered as a result. Certainly I would not have done so given the stubborn intransigence of the then DTI, wedded as it was to the view that the UK had nothing to learn from the renewables policy experience of other European countries or anywhere else for that matter. I recall numerous discussions with Labour Ministers in those early years, when despite all of their helpful rhetoric

“For all of the signiﬁcance of the early grant programmes aimed at kick-starting the UK solar market, the reality is that Labour wasted a real opportunity to help us build an industry capable of competing on equal terms with more established solar markets overseas.”

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about catching up with Germany and Japan, it was clear that they didn’t truly “get it.” Certainly that was true of their departments. It was blindingly obvious that in the absence of a fundamental shift in the government’s approach to the technology, we were never going to see the “tens of thousands of solar roofs” every year that successive Labour energy Ministers were promising in their press releases. For all of the signiﬁcance of the early grant programmes aimed at kick-starting the UK solar market, the reality is that Labour wasted a real opportunity to help us build an industry capable of competing on equal terms with more established solar markets overseas. I saw this at ﬁrst hand during my years as an initially enthusiastic but increasingly frustrated member of the government’s now disbanded Renewables Advisory Board.

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>> JEREMY LEGGETT, SOLARCENTURY

“Back then and through the long frustrating years of the first two Blair led governments no one would have predicted that one day the UK would have a “proper” Feed-in-Tariff, albeit temporarily.” Many stories from that period stand out. But the fact that Solarcentury had to go to the extraordinary lengths of meeting the then Prime Minister Tony Blair just to secure an additional £6m of funding for the Low Carbon Buildings Programme, against a backdrop of disinterest and opposition from the DTI, really says it all. The DTIs decision to suspend the programme on the very same day that the additional funding was confirmed was astonishing even by the “stop start” standards of Sir Humphreyesque policy-making at that time. Sadly, this stop start mindset didn’t end in 2007, far from it. The revelation in August 2011 that the Low Carbon Buildings Programme ended up under spent by around one third is truly shocking, particularly given its premature and unnecessary closure for heat technologies in the weeks after the last election and the large number of good solar PV projects turned away during its lifetime. The Whitehall mindset which put obsession with guaranteeing coming in “under budget” regardless of the negative impact on industries, jobs and customers really had to change and change it did (albeit fleetingly), under the temporary

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stewardship of Ed Miliband. As a result of the Feed-in-Tariff scheme which he delivered, since April 2010, we have seen a tantalising glimpse of the potential of solar PV in the UK. For an all too brief period up to the shambles of the fast-track review, the Feed-inTariff scheme delivered the stability, predictability and certainty that enabled UK PV companies to plan with confidence, invest for the future and take on many more staff. In September 2011, the amount of solar PV on the Ofgem Feed-inTariff register since April 2010 went through 200 MWp, including some 65,000 domestic installations. A 200 MWp market in a little over 17 months contrasts enormously with the drip drip, stop-start funding approach adopted by Labour for most of its time in ofﬁce and the tiny UK 4 or 5 MWp per year market which developed as a result. In one 10 day period in August 2011, more PV was installed than in the whole of 2007 and 2008. But rather than embrace this growing market as a positive sign that their policies are working, Ministers appear to have panicked, effectively ending the market

for “large-scale PV” earlier this year and now they appear to be on the verge of taking the axe to “micro” PV in the forthcoming comprehensive review. As with Labour before, there is a fundamental mismatch between the welcome rhetoric, even general intentions of Ministers on the one hand and the reality of policy fudge, panic and u-turn on the other. The Prime Minister talks positively of the need for “green” UK jobs and of his desire for ever increasing British participation in the global green industrial revolution. Meanwhile, in a much overlooked table buried in the government’s own Renewable Energy Roadmap, Ministers accept that large-scale PV is predicted to be cost-competitive with offshore wind and biomass generation in 2020 and much cheaper than wave and tidal. Grid parity is within our grasp, yes even in “cloudy” Britain. So why not start by celebrating the success of the UKs still embryonic solar industry in creating 17,000 jobs in a little under two years and support the policies, including an effective Feed-in-Tariff that will enable the sector to keep growing with conﬁdence and make a meaningful contribution to future targets?

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JEREMY LEGGETT, SOLARCENTURY <<

“We have come a very long way from “Power to the People” launched by David Cameron amid great fanfare with Greenpeace at the end of 2007 with its commitment to a German style Feed-in-Tariff and an end to “Labour’s” stop start renewables policies. It doesn’t have to be like this. Rather than once again rushing back to the Whitehall default position of frustrating solar in the UK, the government should be working with us to help build on the solid foundations that have been delivered over the past decade.”

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>> JEREMY LEGGETT, SOLARCENTURY

“Nor would any sane commentator have predicted that by 2010 tens of thousands of UK homes per year would be “going solar” and that many thousands of new green jobs would be delivered as a result.”

In the short-term and despite the hugely damaging impact of the fast-track Feed-in-Tariff review, the UK PV market looks on course to deliver sustained growth to April 2012 from what was an extremely small base. Since 1 April 2010, around 65,000 domestic PV installations (over 90% of overall installed capacity) have been accredited under the Feed-in-Tariff, fully in line with the DECC emphasis on the importance of engaging householders and other micro-generators in the scheme. This

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represents an encouraging and solid start for the new scheme but no more than that. This is why it was so troubling that within ﬁve months of the election, Ministers were rushing to neuter the scheme by imposing a rigid cash cap and tearing up all of their various pre-election commitments on the Feedin-Tariff in the process. We have come a very long way from “Power to the People” launched by David Cameron amid great fanfare with Greenpeace at the end of 2007 with its commitment

to a German style Feed-in-Tariff and an end to “Labour’s” stop start renewables policies. It doesn’t have to be like this. Rather than once again rushing back to the Whitehall default position of frustrating solar in the UK, the government should be working with us to help build on the solid foundations that have been delivered over the past decade. It is still not too late for the “greenest government ever” to help to deliver that goal and to ﬁnally ditch the stop-start mentality that has held back solar in the UK since the 1990s.

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21/10/11 10:10:43

ANDREW COOPER <<

GREEN DEAL - THE CHALLENGE FROM KIRKLEES WARM ZONE

By Andrew Cooper

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>> ANDREW COOPER

Andrew was elected to Kirklees Council in May 1999 as a Green Party Councillor and has been re-elected three times in the Newsome Ward. He proposed the UK’s first universally free insulation scheme which saw over 50,000 Kirklees homes insulated in 2010. In 2000, he initiated the council’s Renewable Energy Fund which has seen Kirklees become the leading authority in the deployment of microgeneration technologies with over five per cent of the UK’s solar capacity in the borough.In 2008, Andrew successfully obtained funding for the Kirklees RE-Charge scheme which provides householders with renewable technology for their homes with no upfront costs or monthly payments. He was recognised in the Independent on Sunday’s list of the top 100 environmentalists and was the only Councillor on the list. Andrew Cooper has worked in the housing and energy sector since 1993 when he became Kirklees Council’s first Energy Efficiency Coordinator, he went on to work for Calderdale Council introducing the UK’s first universally free insulation for pensioners. He is also an Independent Energy Consultant.

ith the government’s Green Deal a year away it is a good time to look back at ‘what works’ in delivering large scale energy efficiency programmes and think about how Green Deal might match, or hopefully surpass, the very best practice. Kirklees Warm Zone is something I know a lot about. I proposed the amendment that made this insulation scheme free to private householders back in February 2007. It has since gone on to win awards, be regularly referred to by Ministers and has been held up as a beacon of best practice. A strong team of people worked on it and it is backed by years of experience of project managing energy efficiency programmes by the council. DECC regularly updates statistics for local authority insulation levels and Kirklees remains at the top of that list with the highest proportion of housing stock insulated out of all local authorities in the country. The properties that didn’t receive insulation either already had it installed, were hard to treat with conventional insulation or there were access difficulties. There’s plenty of impressive statistics from the three and a half years that the programme ran for: • 51,155 properties received insulation (either cavity wall , loft insulation or both measures) • 16,111 households received benefits advice

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• £1.6 million new benefits entitlement levered in (estimate) • 111,174 households received free low energy light bulbs • 602 households received central heating funded by local or regional schemes • 2033 households were referred to Warm Front for central heating • 106 jobs created directly for the schemes • 200-250 jobs created • 5.5 points increase in SAP • 1,375 households taken out of fuel poverty • £3.9 million fuel expenditure saving per year • 23,000 tonnes CO2/yr savings average There’s plenty to comment on here. The issue I mention most often in council meetings is the economic regeneration benefits of Kirklees Warm Zone. For an investment of little over £10 million by Kirklees (and a similar amount by Scottish Power from CERT funding) around £4 million goes back into the local economy each year from savings on household fuel bills. Every time that the cost of fuel goes up, so also does the value of the energy savings. With the recent rises in gas prices the ‘payback’ on Kirklees Warm Zone has shrunk considerably. Kirklees Warm Zone was certainly influential to an extent though not as much as many of us wished. The Scottish government’s Home Insulation Scheme was introduced as a response to the Scottish Green Party MSP’s

51,155 properties received insulation

HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL

21/10/11 10:18:35

es ion

ANDREW COOPER << unsuccessful attempt in 2009 to get the Kirklees Scheme replicated in the whole of Scotland. Energy Efﬁciency programmes run by the Greater London Assembly and also a number of small scale area based schemes have been strongly inﬂuenced by the Kirklees model. Interestingly very few have followed the ‘free insulation for all’ approach we pioneered. There are a number of reasons for this lack of replication of good practice not least of which is the severe constraints on public sector funding that has put paid to many worthy projects as councils concentrate on cost cutting and trying to deliver basic services. Another important factor is the long policy hiatus as we await the Green Deal to begin. There’s not a lot of point beginning a three or four year programme to insulate all the housing

602 households received central heating funded by local or regional schemes

in your area if the funding mechanism that supports it, in this case CERT, will be abolished in 2012 and the Energy Company Obligation that replaces it will not signiﬁcantly help replicate Kirklees style insulation schemes. One of the key challenges Kirklees Warm Zone offers to Green Deal is to match or exceed the rate at which carbon is saved. The scheme was limited to just over three years as part of a systematic, door by door, street by street, area based approach, with the aim of being able to say “job done” for basic insulation in the district. By the end of 2010, we were able to show how quickly we could save carbon with a concerted, time limited, programme with a compelling offer. If government policy truly recognises the urgency of addressing climate change then it is the speed of carbon saving that is

200-250 jobs created

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important. Green Deal needs to rapidly ramp up into being a big saver of carbon, not a half hearted option for householders to consider, for only the committed to embrace and one which many will discount and ignore. Green Deal is of course a much bigger proposition in terms of measures that will be on offer. It is not just cavity wall and loft insulation but solid wall insulation, internal dry lining, better heating controls, efficient boilers and microgeneration too. So in many ways the potential for Green Deal to exceed any other energy efficiency scheme to date is huge. Green Deal does not however lend itself easily to area based approaches. There could be many providers in an area all trying to sell pretty much the same product. Consumer protection and confidence in the Green Deal offer is going to be

1,375 households taken out of fuel poverty 16,111 households received beneﬁts advice

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>> ANDREW COOPER

crucial if the scheme is going to get off the starting blocks without a hiccup and also for its long term reputation as a trusted energy efﬁciency provider. Like many others, I want Green Deal to succeed and the lesson from Kirklees Warm Zone is that the offer to

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the householder has to be compelling. In this case the loan arrangements have got to be unequivocally a ‘no brainer’ for the householder. The ‘golden rule’ by which savings in fuel bills meet or exceed loan repayments needs to be guaranteed. The costs of

the work carried out under Green Deal needs to match or be cheaper than could be obtained independently from a contractor. The interest rates offered for loans under Green Deal should be attractive and better than could be obtained on the high street. The role of the local authority is key to the Green Deal’s success. Local authorities are generally trusted bodies; they are permanent institutions, where people can go when they need support with concerns and issues. Local authorities have access to householders through a range of media including letters, websites and an array of publications. Local authorities now need to realise their power in assisting the delivery of Green Deal and conveying that effectively to the potential providers. The resultant partnerships should be good for councils, the providers, the Green Deal itself and most importantly the householders beneﬁting from it.

HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL

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>> JULIET DAVENPORT, GOOD ENERGY

WHEN IT COMES TO ENERGY,

The vision of Good Energy’s CEO Juliet Davenport

SMALL REALLY IS

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JULIET DAVENPORT, GOOD ENERGY << Juliet Davenport is the founder of the UK’s only 100% renewable electricity supplier, Good Energy. The company works with over 4,000 small and medium-sized independent green generators and supplies green electricity to over 27,000 domestic and business customers throughout the UK. With a mission to empower individuals to make a difference to climate change, it has a strong track record of innovating in the energy industry. It owns a wind farm in North Cornwall, and plans to add 50 MW of new onshore wind capacity in the next ﬁve years – enough to power the homes in a city about the size of Cambridge.

s Juliet explains,“Good Energy has a vision for a decentralised and democratic energy network for the whole of Britain. Energy does not need to be complex and mysterious, delivered by large, remote corporations. Our experience shows that it can be made by ordinary people, businesses and communities, throughout the UK, giving us greater independence and greater energy security. When it comes to energy, small really is beautiful.” Juliet’s interest in climate change began as a student at Oxford University. Studying atmospheric physics she saw ﬁrst-hand how sensitive climate systems were to changing densities of gases in the atmosphere. She went on to do a Masters’ degree in economics and environmental economics at Birkbeck College, London. This was followed by a spell working in European Parliament before entering the private sector and founding the company which would become Good Energy. This background was to inform her approach to business:“I want to change the way the corporate and political world manages our energy; ensuring that a future world is one where energy is priced according to its environmental costs as well as its direct costs. The world economy has developed around energy being cheap and plentiful, but we need to start considering it a precious resource rather than wasting it. Our experience shows that when people understand where their energy comes from they value it more and use it less.” Climate change is principally an energy problem – burning fossil fuels to generate energy accounts for 74% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Juliet could see that it was very difﬁcult to change the energy industry from the outside and little was happening on the inside. Setting up a green electricity

supply company was a way to empower individuals to make a difference by choosing to switch to a 100% renewable electricity supply, and set a benchmark for how the UK could source its energy from renewables. “I set up Good Energy to be a catalyst for change in the energy industry. At that time it was an untrodden path – there was almost no renewable energy in the UK and there was little experience of setting up independent power suppliers. By choosing a 100% renewable electricity supply, people can connect with the innovative, independent pioneers who are generating energy from wind, water and sunlight.” Since the company was founded in 1999, it has effected real change in the industry. Now every supplier offers a ‘green’ tariff – although Good Energy remains the only one whose fuel mix is 100% renewable. It also pioneered rewards for independent green generators, and now leads the industry with its Feed-in Tariff services, with a market share of 8% and rising. Good Energy recently took the UK’s ﬁrst commercial wind farm at Delabole in Cornwall into its second generation, replacing ten old turbines with four new ones, increasing output by roughly two and a half times creating a total capacity of 9.2MW - enough to supply roughly 7000 homes. The wind farm now accounts for around 20% of its electricity. In another industry ﬁrst, the company has been working with over 40 new larger solar PV generators and will be sourcing around a third of its electricity from solar power. While energy costs have been hitting the headlines lately, for all the wrong reasons, Good Energy has managed to buck the rising price trend by implementing a price freeze until at least 2012. The company hasn’t actually raised its prices since 2008, so

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it’s never been a better time price-wise to switch to green power. Good Energy is now undercutting its biggest rivals on their standard tariffs. There’s a sense that Good Energy’s moment has come.“It’s a very exciting and dynamic time to be involved in energy. A combination of fuel prices, politics and the growth in renewables means there are fantastic opportunities for the business right now. Good Energy is about so much more than just being an energy supplier: we campaign, collaborate and innovate. Our work encompasses many aspects, from forecasting how much power to buy on a daily basis according to the weather, to supporting our microgenerators and continuing to provide “real people” customer service.” One thing that gets Juliet particularly excited is talking about the role government and policymakers have in the UK’s energy future. She spends a lot of time meeting MPs and government ministers to advise them about the changes the government needs to make to ensure a lower carbon and secure energy system, based on renewables. The company also works closely with key campaigning partner organisations, such as Friends of the Earth, to lobby for change. “The traditional approach to energy is clearly broken and needs ﬁxing. We need to move towards a decentralised energy market which can provide the UK with resilience against price volatility caused by relying on energy imported from abroad. The recent price hikes we’ve seen from the Big Six are a sign of that reliance, as 60% of our energy is currently imported. Government policy is currently presenting some big challenges particularly with Electricity Market Reform and getting this right now will be key to ensuring that the

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>> JULIET DAVENPORT, GOOD ENERGY

“For too long we have taken for granted that at the ﬂ ick of a switch, the lights come on and we don’t think about where it comes from. We need to inform people about the provenance of their energy, because when people understand it they will value it more and use it less.”

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JULIET DAVENPORT, GOOD ENERGY <<

technologies of the future for the UK - tidal, wave and geothermal - will be part of our fuel mix in the future.” So, what next for Juliet and Good Energy? It’s looking at opportunities presented by the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and the Green Deal

– and doing for heating what they’ve achieved for electricity. Heat accounts for the biggest use of energy in the UK. Just under half of the UK’s CO2 emissions and 60% of domestic energy bills are due to heating space and water. Currently less than 1% comes from renewable sources.

The RHI is something Good Energy understands, having pioneered its own version in 2008, called HotROCs – a payment the utility makes to its customers who installed solar thermal panels. So it was natural that when the government launched its consultation

“Climate change is principally an energy problem - burning fossil fuels to generate energy accounts for 74% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Juliet could see that it was very difﬁcult to change the energy industry from the outside and little was happening on the inside.”

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>> JULIET DAVENPORT, GOOD ENERGY into its own RHI scheme it would be interested in what Good Energy had to say. Juliet explains:“As the only utility to have pioneered and delivered an RHI ourselves, Good Energy has worked hard to convince the government of the difference an RHI would make to improving the take-up of renewable heat technology and cutting the UK’s carbon emissions. An effective RHI is an essential step towards a low-carbon future, and could boost renewable heat to as much as 12%.” It all comes back to Juliet’s ambitious vision for the future – a future in which all

the energy powering the UK comes from renewable sources.“In the UK of 2050, even with transformation in consumer behaviour and smarter technology in our homes and businesses, we are expecting electricity demand to double as transport and heating are electriﬁed. But we can meet that new demand with renewables. As the windiest country in Europe, and with over 11,000 miles of coastline we have renewable resources that are not only abundant, but free. The UK has a lot of catching up to do to bring us in line with the rest of Europe. We currently generate only

2.2% of our power from renewables. Compare this with 44.4% in Sweden, 11% in France, and 9% in Germany. We also need to change how energy is used in the UK. For too long we have taken for granted that at the ﬂick of a switch, the lights come on and we don’t think about where it comes from. We need to inform people about the provenance of their energy, because when people understand it they will value it more and use it less.” If Good Energy’s track record is anything to go by, it’s a vision that could well become a reality.

“By choosing a 100 percent renewable electricity supply, people can connect with the innovative, independent pioneers who are generating energy from wind, water and sunlight.”

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HEATING & HOTWATER INDUSTRY COUNCIL

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MEMBERS NEWS <<

011 is nearly over and it has been a tough year.The economy has proved to be more challenging than anticipated and this has provoked a change in how industry and consumers look at heating and energy efficiency. With energy price rises and the overall cost of living rising fast, this has resulted in income not keeping up with inflation and inevitably consumers are looking for ways in which they can cut costs. However the government incentive schemes are a year away and this has left householders in limbo.This neatly sums up 2011 - the year that kept industry waiting. HHIC has not been resting on its laurels but very active in political and technical circles responding to consultations and drafting new regulations and standards. First of all, we have to deal with the release of the Energy Saving Trust’s Heat Pump field trials. These were not without controversy and provided a challenge to the renewable heating industry. However the lessons learnt are vital if this exciting technology is to become a future staple for heating people’s homes. The heat pump industry and the rest of the renewable industry were gifted the Renewable Heat Premium Payment in August, a fixed rate payment for installing renewable technologies. Although not as instantly popular as the Boiler Scrappage scheme it has helped to encourage people to fit renewables. However the uncertainty over RHI has probably dampened demand. The big success of the year has undoubtedly been Solar PV. Although a minority interest product a few years ago, now every town is littered with homes with shiny new roof panels. With great returns on investment being offered through the Feed in Tariffs - it is little wonder that this technology has taken off so dramatically. But how long this upsurge in demand will last is debatable if the Feed in Tariff rates are slashed. The heating industry has also benefited from the FIT’s with Micro CHP being included and the early signs are encouraging. HHIC will be ending the year working on encouraging government to increase the tariff for Micro CHP to boost demand and to help realise the potential of this exciting product. HHIC has for a number of years been working on the upcoming changes to energy labelling. These European regulations were always just a year away from being announced. Many years later and through baited breath, they are finally upon us. This year we have been heavily involved, debating with the EU parliament and European trade associations about their final form. Next year, companies will finally learn how and when they are to be implemented and will be able to gage their impact. UK companies should not see too many up front changes, due to

MEMBER NEWS By Isaac Occhipinti, Membership Manager

our ceaseless work in this area, however this mechanism will now be able to be used to ratchet up minimum standards and drive up overall heating system efﬁciencies. We will hold a number of meetings next year to inform companies about the full effects so make sure you attend. Also, we were pleased to announce earlier in 2011 that the Boiler Manufacturers had agreed to link boiler warranty to the completion of a Benchmark Commissioning Checklist. This change will help to isolate cowboy installers and drive up commissioning standards. HHIC wishes to thank all the companies and individuals that helped to achieve this landmark decision and for their continued support. More information on Benchmark and how this change will affect consumers and installers can be found on our website. Our technical team are always incredibly busy. Aside from their tireless work on BSI standards and Gas Safety standards, they have been assisting with the drafting of new standards for MCS installers and agreeing advice for frozen condensate pipes. MCS has been seen as an over-complicated, bureaucratic barrier to entry to the renewable market. In order to alleviate some of these concerns, we have helped to redraft the MCS installation standards, which should ease the burden on smaller installers and make MCS more achievable. 2010 and early 2011 saw some of the

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harshest weather in recent memory and saw the unfortunate phenomenon of frozen condensate pipes. While a relatively simple fault to ﬁx, its emergence under our unusually harsh winters has led to calls for new advice. HHIC in conjunction with manufacturers have produced two detailed guidance sheets for installers and householders. It is important that householders check their condensate pipes now and if they are external, look at ways of mitigating against future freezes. All information and factsheets can be found on our website. The HHIC website also contains new advice and downloadable PDF guides on a range of current topics such as policy changes like the RHPP or the Green Deal.This tailored advice has a simple introduction and key points with in depth policy detail and further links.This information is free for all members to disseminate as required and we would encourage that all members take a look. It could also prove useful for members’ websites or to distribute at shows. Hopefully 2012 will be a more decisive year with all the initiatives we have been working towards coming to fruition. What we do know is that it will be an incredibly busy year with a lot of work needing to be done to ensure RHI, ERP and the Green Deal meet the needs of the heating industry. Therefore, make sure you come to meetings and participate in any way you can as we will need the whole industry working together to ensure a positive outcome.

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