The UK prime minister has said fighting climate change will require business, Government and individuals to work together, and last week he launched a series of initiatives to make UK homes greener. But in my mind there is very little there for the individual, and very little concrete action from Government and no clear strategy around which to build a business.
There will be money to launch an “Act on Co2″ advice line, which will apparently offer free advice, and a green neighbourhoods initiative which will aim to reduce CO2 in 100 neighbourhoods throughout England. So there is money for talking and some sort unclear initiative providing a bit of money here and a bit there. The green neighbourhoods initiative is supposed to encourage local alliances of residents, community groups, local government and businesses to build consortia that will be able to bid for funds from a measly £10 million. It is unclear who will lead these consortia, and seems to be an unnecessary complex way to go about it.
A much simpler and clearer way forward might to be use grants to push energy efficiency coupled with an effective “feed-in tariff” approach such as that used with great success by Germany, to provide a real drive towards micro generation. This would reduce the pay-back period from over 60 years to under
20, making it economically as well as environmentally worthwhile for
homeowners to invest.
Provide incentives that make it economically sensible for individuals and businesses to invest in energy efficiency and micro-generation and by and large most people will, and once things get going the costs will decrease further, bringing on even more people. You know it makes sense!
Written by ashleys on April 5th, 2008 with no comments.
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In another symbol of how much better Germany is approach the whole concept of renewable energy and micro-generation is the news that the Reichstag is to run entirely on renewable energy from this summer. Due to a fairly recent refurbishment the building is already very energy efficient. The building houses biofuel generators in its basement which are already providing 40% of its energy needs. The remainder will now be supplied by renewable outside sources.
As I said at the beginning it is purely a symbol , but I’m impressed by what Germany have managed to do in pushing renewables forward especially their tariff based support of micro-generation. All of which has but them way ahead of the UK and other countries.
Written by ashleys on March 29th, 2008 with no comments.
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The Guardian reports on the group of MPs led by the Conservative Michael Fallon who are introducing a private member’s bill to parliament this week in a bid to prevent the government back-pedalling on rules that require construction companies to fit renewable energy sources to new buildings.
The bill is designed to ensure support for the so-called Merton Rule, introduced by the London borough of Merton four years ago and since copied by more than 100 local authorities. The rule requires developers to source at least 10% of any new building’s energy from renewable sources. The rule is seen as an important part of trying to get the UK to catch up with the rest of Europe on the micro-generation of renewable energy.
Written by ashleys on December 3rd, 2007 with no comments.
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Natural Choices is reporting on a report by the Renewable Advisory Board which suggests that a growing requirement for energy efficient homes could create a £2.3 billion energy micro-generation market by 2016. The report highlights the critical role that micro-generation could play in meeting the energy requirements of the UK. While at present generating energy on site for domestic consumption is more expensive than the alternatives it does avoid transport wastage and the need for big wind farms.
In the “The Role of Onsite Energy Generation in Delivering Zero Carbon Homes.” Report the Renewables Advisory Board argue that small changes in the Sustainable Building Code could boost the development of a domestic micro-generation industry, which they estimate could build an industry worth £2.3 billion from 2016.
Hopefully the government will take this report seriously and realise that we have all the technology that we need to move ahead and make micro-generation an increasingly important part of the countries energy generation capability.
Written by ashleys on November 27th, 2007 with no comments.
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Due to high demand for grants from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP) by the home market since the scheme launched in April this year, a further £6.2 million is to be transfered to the householder stream.
“Through the huge response to the Low Carbon Buildings Programme we have already allocated over £3m of grants to households installing microgeneration – the demand has been so great that this represents half the total household budget in only the first year of the programme,” said Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks. “To enable it to continue this good work I am pleased to announce that we are re-allocating a further £6.2m of the programme funding to the householder workstream. On projected demand levels this should allow us to operate the grant programme until mid 2008.”
Good news! Get your grant applications in! First seen on greenconsumerguide.com
Written by ashleys on October 31st, 2006 with no comments.
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B&Q are now selling turbine blades at their stores. So do we rush out and buy one expecting to save money? Where would we install it? Can we attach it to the chimney stack that has been there for 100 years? Lets imagine that we have bought a nice shinny new wind turbine and manage to get it all in the car or had it delivered because we just got rid of that petrol guzzling people carrier that was so useful for transporting stuff around. So what do we do now?
Good question and it something I have been planning to write about for a while. In the meantime The Guardian has put together a useful piece entitled Blowing in the wind on this subject. The article also provides some useful links.
Written by ashleys on October 30th, 2006 with no comments.
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