The UK Government has published its long-awaited Low Carbon Transition Plan White Paper, which sets out the national strategy for climate and energy. Key proposals include installing smart meters in all homes by 2020, introducing ‘pay as you save’ energy options to seven million households, and introducing feed-in tariffs to encourage individuals and businesses to produce electricity and heat from local carbon sources and be paid to do so.
All told, the Low Carbon Transition Plan White Paper sets out to ensure Britain “produces around 30 per cent of our electricity from renewables - solar, wave and tidal power - by 2020”. Currently, approximately 3 per cent is generated from renewable power sources. Britain has signed up to meet EU targets of producing 30-40% of electricity from renewables within 11 years. It has also pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 34% by 2020.
The ambition has been broadly welcomed by industry, business and pressure groups despite the associated increased costs, which are likely to add £92 annually to every household’s fuel bill. But, several commentators warn that the target may be too ambitious. Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust, said: “We need a six-fold increase in renewable generation energy in just 11 years. It can be achieved but it will require a huge transformation in political, economic and industrial thinking.”
The proposals include paying consumers between £0.31 and £0.36 per kWh to produce electricity from solar PV or wind turbines and feed it into the national grid. The ambition is to generate a modest two per cent of the nation’s electricity requirement from these sources of renewable power. Commentators feel that the amount offered is too low to stimulate much take up among homewowners. Grants of up to £2,500 are available through the Low Carbon Buildings Programme.
In a busy period for Government, the location of the first four Government-sponsored eco-towns has been announced. The successful eco-town sites, which will pioneer innovative design and infrastructure for greener living, are Whitehill-Bordon in Hampshire, St Austell (China Clay) in Cornwall, Rackheath in Norfolk and North West Bicester in Oxfordshire. These sites have met the Government’s tough standards during two years of assessment. The first 10,000 homes will be built by 2016.
Lastly, the Government department CLG has published the much delayed zero carbon homes definition, first mooted in July 2007. John Healey, Minister for Housing, announced there would be a hierarchy for carbon reductions, beginning with high levels of energy efficiency for the fabric of the home, followed by a 70% level of carbon mitigation achieved on-site. He recognised that developers will need recourse to so-called “allowable solutions” such as investing in off-site renewables.
The latter point has been a source of consternation for many housebuilders, who under Government’s previous provisional zero carbon definitions would have been required to produce 100% of the energy requirement for new homes through onsite renewables by 2016. Paul King, the UK-GBC chief executive, responded positively to the announcement. He said: “This announcement confirms a sensible ‘hierarchy’ approach to carbon reductions.”
We at whatgreenhome.com welcome the Government’s announcement that offsite renewables will be allowable. The earlier draft definition was simply unworkable and placed too much of a burden on housebuilders to be energy providers. District heating systems, CHP, solar and other renewables have a part to play in the energy mix, but so too does the Government through mobilising national schemes to provide the country’s electricity and heat requirements through renewable sources of energy.
The White Paper, therefore, is a route map to achieve a lower carbon society, and finally an acknowledgement by the Government that if Britain is to have a hope in hell of meeting its legally binding climate change obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 34% by 2020 and by 80 per cent by 2050 (and produce 30-40% of electricity from renewables within 11 years) it must think and act big. Talk is cheap, action is harder, but at the very least there is now a plan in place.
