Examination of Witness (Questions 200-219)
INSTITUTION OF
ENGINEERING AND
TECHNOLOGY
23 OCTOBER 2006
Q200 Mr Wright: We understand that
the Italian approach is that they have implemented a national
roll-out of a particular technology. Do you think there should
be standards to which the industry can work or do you consider
that the Italian approach is correct?
Prof Loughhead: If you are going
to make any change to a critical infrastructure like our energy
system, it makes enormous sense if you agree the standards you
are going to adopt and that then allows you to give people the
freedom to implement those standards in any way they see fit.
The Italian approach which is simply an edict that you shall install
this on a certain timescale works fine in a more centralised system
than it appears we wish to pursue at present.
Q201 Mr Wright: It is difficult to
get people to convert to water meters without a degree of compulsion
in terms of new properties. Would we face the same with smart
metering?
Prof Loughhead: It depends what
you want to do. From a purely engineering viewpoint, our natural
desire to make the systems work more flexibly, efficiently and
with all kinds of possibilities would lead us to say, "Yes,
smart meters would be great." If you ask me do we need smart
meters to make the system work, it depends on the trading arrangements.
Meters are simply a means by which you decide how much money person
A is going to pay to organisation B or vice versa.
Q202 Chairman: You were sitting in
during our last witness session and you heard them talk about
training, standards and those issues. I think we had a call from
the Council for clearer standards in this sector. Do you think
the industry is doing a good enough job of maintaining standards?
Prof Loughhead: Could you clarify
"standards" in what exactly?
Q203 Chairman: Particularly the workforce,
the installation, the engineers who are doing the job.
Prof Loughhead: Our observation
would be that in many of these systems industry as such does not
control the workforce because the workforce consists of a spectrum
from people employed by large organisations to individual traders.
If you get somebody from, for example, Central Networks come to
look at something in your fuse box, you probably have a higher
likelihood that they will not blow up your house than if you get
Eric, the electrician, from the local Yellow Pages or even worse
from a sign in a local newsagent's window. In a number of areas
evidence is starting to be found that there is cause for concern
about the standard of installation. Recently, I was talking to
an organisation that had started to look at the efficiency of
condensing boilers in operation, as installed in houses. Their
initial and as yet unpublished data suggests that the boilers
have been installed safely but none of the other necessary changes
to the heating systems to make them work efficiently had been
made or attempted. Consequently, they were working at an efficiency
much lower than they claimed to operate at. There are instances
like that which make me believe that there are some problems.
If you look at some of the other systems that you are looking
atfor instance, solar thermal systems in housesfor
those to work really effectively you need an internal water system
which is arranged differently to our standard water system. Ideally
you need to both install the panel and look at changes to the
internal plumbing. Whether that is done by everybody who has installed
systems I do not know. To what standard is it done? I do not think
there is a standard; it is just assumed that somebody will advise
you what to do.
Q204 Chairman: I am not familiar
with the current accreditation schemes. Do you think they meet
the needs of the industry?
Prof Loughhead: I am not aware
personally of any accreditation for people to install a domestic
wind turbine, solar PV systems or solar thermal systems or anything
else so I do not really know. That is marginally outside the area
with which I am fully familiar.
Q205 Chairman: If we are to get the
benefit of these systems that are installed and if people are
to have confidence in them, it is clearly important they do the
job they are intended to do. I am about to have a condensing boiler
installed next week at home.
Prof Loughhead: I hope they have
done a consultation on the design of your heating system to ensure
it is compatible. If they have not been measuring radiators and
adjusting the temperatures, I would be very willing for a small
fee
Q206 Chairman: He has been trained
by Worcester Bosch, I know. What about the skills shortages in
the sector? There is a great shortage of plumbers and electricians
as it is generally. Do you think you have a problem with the skills?
Prof Loughhead: I think the skills
probably are currently slightly inadequate for the level of activity
that we have. If there is any significant increase, I am sure
that we will see a need to increase substantially the number of
people that are competent to install and maintain systems of this
form.
Q207 Chairman: The answer is yes,
there is a potential skills shortage?
Prof Loughhead: I believe that
there is a potential skills shortage, yes.
Q208 Chairman: The degree of expertise
required to install conventional systems is quite high and this
is higher still.
Prof Loughhead: Yes, correct.
Q209 Chairman: Can the Government
do anything about that? Should it?
Prof Loughhead: That is almost
a political question. Certainly if we are going to do things like
this we should have some form of standards. Those standards inevitably
will touch upon the competence of the persons who are going to
do it. It would seem something that is natural to be done at a
national level. I cannot see any reason why you would want to
have regional differences and consequently it sounds like something
that the Government should expect to be involved in.
Q210 Chairman: We must look crucially
not just at the safety of installations but their efficiency as
well.
Prof Loughhead: Yes. The efficiency
is something tested on a bench in a laboratory, under ideal conditions.
One used in a household, possibly full of teenagers, is something
totally different.
Q211 Chairman: Presumably typically
better done with new build as well rather than retrofitted?
Prof Loughhead: It is always easier
to do these things with new build and it is always cheaper. If
there is a serious desire to see things such as, for instance,
solar thermal, one would have to ask the question: why does it
not just become a requirement on new roofs, because the marginal
cost is probably quite small. The advantage is you then also have
the internal hot water system designed to be used in a case like
that. Ensuring that new build is microgen-ready makes a lot of
sense and it is difficult to see why we do not do that.
Q212 Chairman: You talked about solar
thermal. Most of our evidence session with you has been discussing
electricity. Do you accept the view that has been expressed by
some of our witnesses that some of the easiest things to do are
on the heat front rather than the electricity front?
Prof Loughhead: It is certainly
easier to do things on the heat front generally, yes, as long
as we overcome the problems to which I alluded earlier about making
sure it is installed effectively. The difference however is, I
would remind you, most parts of the UK use three to four times
the amount of energy in heat that they do in electricity so you
have to make a much bigger contribution with heat to have an impact.
Electricity is, in the energy sector, the lowest efficiency at
the moment with the current system.
Q213 Chairman: We could make a big
contribution with carbon saving if we increased the use of microgen
for heat purposes?
Prof Loughhead: I would advocate
using it for both electricity and heat, yes.
Q214 Chairman: One of the problems
is that if the Government decides it wants to create a framework
in which new nuclear power stations can be built, it can price
carbon, adapt the planning regime, do various things to try and
encourage the build of new nuclear power stations generating lots
of electricity and that is fine; but this is an issue where millions
of people must be incentivised to do something or at least hundreds
of thousands of councils or local organisations must be incentivised.
What is the role for government, if there is one, in encouraging
these people to make all these great changes?
Prof Loughhead: That is an enormously
difficult and key question. I am afraid I do not have a simple
answer for you. If you can find a way to incentivise people to
make more use of microgeneration, you should have done that after
you have incentivised them to do the simpler thing, which is to
find more effective ways of using energy. There is a lot of scope
to reduce our energy usage without impacting on our quality of
life, probably at a very crude estimate by about 20%. That comes
straight off our carbon emissions and straight off our energy
bill.
Q215 Chairman: Are we talking about
the domestic environment with space heating or transport as well?
Prof Loughhead: I am talking about
energy use by individuals which represents half the total energy
consumption of the UK, whether it is in space heating or electricity
usage in the home, the use of cars, the use of transport or whatever.
The other 50% of energy is used by people while they are at work
and there is some flexibility there. If we assume that there is
a 20% reductionlet us confine ourselves to the domestic
sector which is what we are talking about for microgeneration
in the first instanceto make a 20% reduction in our carbon
emissions by substitution of conventional energy by microgeneration
is quite a long term programme and it is quite capital intensive.
A behavioural change to effect a reduction in demand is probably
difficult to do but does not have a capital implication at all.
That is what one should try first of all. To go back to the question
about incentivising people to do it, I would repeat something
I said earlier. To the individual consumer there has to be a benefit.
I noted in the other evidence the fact that people who have microgeneration
show signs of changed behaviour but I think we must be careful
because mainly those that have it today are the ones who are already
eager to change their behaviour and they are quite a small proportion
of the population. The key must be to find some benefit. Whether
that is fiscal, whether you get a green badge to stick in your
window, whether you get free tickets to the local football match
or whatever I do not know, but there has to be some benefit. It
is unlikely with our current regime of low energy prices. Energy
is not expensive for many of the population. It is a low item
of cost. The savings that you can make on energy efficient technologies
are almost irrelevant. There has to be an incentive and a benefit
that is other than fiscal and other than just a "feel good"
factor.
Q216 Chairman: Your institution's
view is that microgeneration has the potential to make quite a
useful contribution to energy production and carbon saving in
the medium to long term but in the short term energy efficiency
is the single cost that should be gained?
Prof Loughhead: Yes. It is a cheaper
one and it is something that you can do more quickly but that
is not an argument against microgeneration.
Q217 Chairman: I understand that.
Too much of the debate is either/or, is it not, in this area?
Prof Loughhead: In this whole
area it is everything. We will need to deploy a whole suite of
methods if we are to meet our long term aims and it will involve
everything from different large scale generation technologies,
including carbon capture, all the way down to exploiting small
scale systems. The simplest thing any engineer will tell you is,
if you have a problem in meeting your needs for something, start
by reducing your needs and then work on the difficult question
of how you supply them.
Q218 Chairman: There is no philosopher's
stone.
Prof Loughhead: I am afraid there
is not.
Q219 Chairman: Is there anything
more you want to say, Prof Loughhead?
Prof Loughhead: No, I think that
is it. Thank you very much.
Chairman: We are most grateful to you.
Thank you very much indeed.
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