Mandatory Consequential Improvements no more April 17, 2012
Posted by Tom Naughton in Editorial.Tags: Energy Efficiency, legislation, Part L
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The whole Part L consequential improvements fiasco has really been a demonstration of picking the right inflammatory rhetoric to sell newspapers. As soon as the national press decided to attack the scheme and dub it a “Conservatory Tax”, the government has been back tracking until, yesterday, David Cameroon stepped in and declared it effectively dead.
However, I can’t help but believe that the reason it failed was nothing to do with policy rather presentation. The media reports are littered with inaccuracies. For example, this Guardian piece claims that under the proposal, a new £1,000 patio would mean that you would have to spend £100 on insulation. However, patios are not heated spaces (that also includes unheated conservatories!) and, therefore, don’t fall under Part L. Therefore, consequential improvements would never have applied.
With 99% of the CO2 emissions coming from the existing housing stock, it looks like another missed opportunity in providing any effective CO2 reductions.
Bring on Part L 2016!
Time to party like it’s Part L 2013 February 21, 2012
Posted by Tom Naughton in Editorial.Tags: Building Regulations, Consultation, DCLG, DFEE, Energy Efficiency, FEE, Fuel Factors, legislation, Part L 2013, Part L1A, Part L1B, TFEE
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We know that not a lot of people have yet had the time to go through the consultation on proposed changes to Part L 2013 issued earlier this month. Well, we at XCO2 energy love that kind of stuff, and here’s a brief summary with our comments. We have concentrated on the domestic front, more on non-domestic buildings to follow.
- Tired of initialisms already? Here is DFEE and TFEE for you.
If you are already familiar with the DER/TER duo and with FEE, you may have guessed what this is. FEE, or Fabric Energy Efficiency, is a measure of how well the fabric performs and is influenced by U-values, thermal bridging and air tightness. The measure for the dwelling (DFEE) will have to meet a set target level (TFEE).
Differently from the TER, however, TFEE will be an absolute performance target, still to be determined. The consultation gives two options: either full 39/46kWh/m2/year FEES levels or less demanding interim levels of 43/52kWh/m2/year (the different figures refer to different dwelling types).
Although FEE was introduced by SAP 2009, a target was not established at that occasion, something that the industry had been calling for for a while. From our point of view, this is a welcome step, and very much in line with the ZC definition and its “fabric first” solution. (more…)
Domestic feed in tariffs – where we are and where should we go? May 7, 2009
Posted by Tom Kordel in Editorial, legislation.Tags: buy back rate, domestic, feed in tariff, legislation, microgeneration, Microwind, onsite renewable, PV, renewables, ROC, UK policy
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There have recently been some interesting offers made by UK electricity suppliers to the domestic renewable energy generator. In particular Scottish and Southern Energy (S&SE) are offering 28p on every kWh generated by PV and exported to the grid. This seems like a great offer and looks like we are heading closer to the kind of feed in tariffs available in other parts of Europe (eg Spain Real Decreto 1578/2008 – 0.34€/kWh). This post analyses the offers available for one particular scenario; an average South England household with a sizeable photovoltaic array and then makes a comparison to the current Spanish government feed in tariff.
Carbon Confusion January 16, 2009
Posted by Ricardo Moreira in Editorial.Tags: emission factor, legislation
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At the risk of resuscitating the age-old carbon emissions factor discussion already exhaustively debated by the whole industry, the news that the Advertising Standards Authority is requiring turbine suppliers to use the 0.43 kgCO2/kWh for avoided emissions has just muddled things up a bit more.
At least for design teams, the figure used to be constant throughout the project stages, but now the pre-planning process for renewables projects may be using this lower figure. When that project is building-related, architects may start by using the 0.43 figure they get from the suppliers, then 0.422 for grid-supplied and 0.568 for grid-displaced electricity for planning submissions, Part L and Code, 0.55 for the Display Energy Certificate if the building is public, and finally 0.523 when the building owner is calculating its ISO 14064 emissions, per DEFRA guidance. That’s five different emission factors for the same project!
Granted, some of these figures aim at measuring emissions during different timeframes for different purposes, but, without getting into the merit of which figure is the right one, a bit of consistency from the various government agencies wouldn’t hurt…
Sustainability and the role legislation has to play December 16, 2008
Posted by Tom Naughton in Editorial.Tags: Biomass, legislation, London Plan, renewables, sustainability
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At the recent AJ Sustainable Summit, XCO2 Energy participated in the panel on regulation and whether it was a help or a hindrance to true sustainable design in the built environment. We thought it would be an interesting discussion topic for this blog.
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