Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-145)
PROFESSOR GORDON
MACKERRON,
DR JIM
WATSON AND
DR ALISTER
SCOTT
26 OCTOBER 2005
Q140 Joan Walley: Can I press you in
terms of how you make progress with that. Is not one of the obstacles
the lack of training, in terms of plumbers and fitters and everybody
else, to have the expertise and capacity to equip and fit the
new technology?
Dr Watson: Yes, I think that is
true. As with a lot of these aspects, you have to distinguish
between different technologies. For example, the photovoltaic
industry will argue that recent subsidies have built up quite
a good body of installers with the necessary expertise, but when
you talk about micro-combined heat and power the companies have
understandably been very cautious about how they offer that technology
and are using in-house expertise to install them in the early
stages, because, frankly, they got their fingers burned about
condensing boilers where there was a lot of rather poor experience
early on. I think that is an issue still.
Q141 Joan Walley: And that has to be
costed into the global cost of things?
Dr Watson: Absolutely.
Q142 Mr Hurd: Even if you did achieve
that wonderful push through in terms of micro CHP, what would
that do in terms of carbon reductions? Your paper seems to suggest
you do not know. Why spend all your political energy in pushing
down that route if you do not know how much carbon you are going
to reduce as a result of all that effort?
Dr Watson: In terms of carbon
reductions there are a lot of uncertainties. The first one is
that it depends what you are replacing; and there is quite at
lot of work going on, not by our team but by other people, to
see when it would generate and, therefore, to try to get some
understanding of how it would replace different types of power
and the carbon emission reduction that would give you. Obviously
it is going to give you some, if it is replacing any fossil station,
unless it is replacing central CHP, because micro-combined heat
and power is generating heat as well, and that should not be forgotten.
That is its main function. It is only generating electricity when
the householder wants heat or hot water. So, if you are displacing
any type of fossil generation, taking into account the losses
from transmissions lines and so on, then you really are getting
quite a gain kilowatt hour for kilowatt hour on your CO2 savings,
but obviously you do have to have a lot of these units in the
field, several million I would say, before you start making some
significant dent in UK CO2 emissions as a whole.
Q143 Colin Challen: Surely the quickest
way to solve the problem is to have district CHP systems installed
rather than looking at the individual householder at the first
stage so that new housing developments—and this is a big
issue at the moment—could use this solution straightaway:
because the CHP technology already exists, does not it?
Dr Watson: Yes, it does, but it
is something we have got a very poor tradition of in the UK, with
a few notable exceptions. I think one of the interesting reasons
why micro CHP or micro wind has taken such a hold in the imagination
of the UK is that we are so individualistic in the way that we
use our own energy. We all have our own boiler; we have our own
way of doing things; this does not particularly lend itself well
to these kinds of communal solutions. Having said that, your point
about new-build is that you could design that in from the start.
I have certainly been in discussions, for example, about the Thames
Gateway development, which is due to be very large, and the idea
that you could build this stuff in and make the Thames Gateway
not energy independent but certainly largely self-sufficient.
Q144 Colin Challen: Are you optimistic
from those discussions that this will happen?
Dr Watson: I am not, unfortunately,
no. We had some nice conferences, all the right people saying
things, but when I asked people, "Is this really going to
make a big difference to the big developers"—because
that is who you are having to deal with—people always point
to their rather poor record and building sustainability in, and
so getting the housing and construction industry to take this
seriously I think is a major challenge.
Q145 Chairman: We are conducting a separate
inquiry into housing and all those issues, so maybe you would
like to send us a memorandum for that one as well. We would be
more than happy to receive it. I thought for one moment on skill
shortages we were going to end up bemoaning how difficult it is
to get hold of a decent plumber these days! We just managed to
avoid it. I am extremely grateful to you for your time, for your
thoughts and for your contribution this afternoon. Thank you very
much indeed.
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