7 Newer technologies
83. The point will come at which all the 'low-hanging
fruit' has been plucked. As outlined above, while cavity wall
insulation and the like can have quick impacts on carbon reduction,
the day will come when all the cavity walls that are going to
be filled have been filled or sealed, all the windows draught-proofed,
and all the boilers lagged. The Energy Saving Trust has estimated
that by about 2020, most of the benefit to be gained from the
familiar types of technology outlined above will have been obtained.
The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs told us:
we have to start with the fact that we are looking
at millions of homes that are so poorly insulated that if they
were to microgenerate you would simply be putting the energy into
the atmosphere. It is a matter of tackling, first of all, the
"low-hanging fruits" essentially: it is about insulation;
it is about cavity wall insulation… Until that is done, it
is very difficult to argue the case that it would be economically
in the best interests of the whole country, the homes, or, indeed,
the energy supply companies, to focus on microgeneration.[122]
This is clearly sensible and correct. The next stage,
however, in the three decades from 2020 to 2050 will be the development
and implementation of newer, less familiar and, at least at present,
more expensive technologies.
84. Microgeneration has yet to become a fully established
solution to home energy emission problems in the UK. Uptake has
been limited to date, as shown in the table below, and a mass
market which might make microgeneration products cheaper and more
readily available is yet to develop.
Box 3 - Estimated
microgeneration installations in the UK - end 2004[123]
| Estimated microgeneration installations in the UK - end 2004
|
| Technology
| Number of Units
| Notes and applicability
|
| Solar Thermal | 80,000 installed
| Fully commercial, but technology improving.
|
| Wind | 700 installed
| Typically roof/wall mounted, mass market domestic sector(<3kW)
|
| MicroCHP | 200 installed
| Mass market for gas boiler replacements
|
| Photovoltaics | 1100 installed
| Technology becoming more established
|
| Fuel Cells | 10 installed
| High electrical efficiency & therefore carbon offset
|
| Ground Source Heat |
400 installed | Particularly attractive for new build sector
|
| Biomass heating | 150 installed
| Wood pellet boilers |
| Micro-hydro | 100 installed
| Water Mill conversions
|
Source: Adapted from Micropower memorandum, Ev
264-72
85. The defining feature of microtechnologies is
that they
reduce or eliminate fossil fuels by utilising more
than 90% of the fuel productively or powered by renewable sources.[124]
The principal technologies concerned work as follows:
Box 4: principal microgeneration technologies
Principal microgeneration technologies
Solar Thermal Hot Water Heating
Solar thermal is the most commonly installed form of solar energy currently in use. It can typically provide almost all hot water requirements during summer months and about 50 per cent all year round. There are three main components for domestic hot water systems: solar panels, a heat transfer system, and a hot water cylinder. The solar panels, or collectors, are usually fitted to the roof and collect heat from the sun's radiation. This heat is used to raise the temperature of the household water and is delivered by the heat transfer system which takes the heated water to the hot water cylinder for storage until use. Typical installation costs for a domestic plate collector system are around £2,000 to £3,000 and for an evacuated tube system around £3,500 - £4,500.
Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Electricity Generation
Photovoltaic generates electricity from sunlight. Small-scale modules are available as roof-mounted panels, roof tiles and conservatory or atrium roof systems. The performance of a PV system will depend on the size of the system, the type of PV cell used and the nature of the installation. The average domestic system is usually between 1.5 and 2 kilowatt peak in size, and costs are around £4,000 to £9,000 per kWp. A typical system may produce enough electricity to supply almost half of an average family's annual supply.
Micro-Wind Turbines
Wind turbines harness the wind to produce electrical power. The efficiency of a domestic system will depend on factors such as location and surrounding environment and the electricity output is usually between 2.5 and 6 KWs, but can be as low as 1 KW. The latest development in domestic wind turbine technology is roof-mounted turbines for installation on domestic dwellings. These mini-wind turbines give a nominal output of 1 KW and are designed to generate energy from low wind speeds. They are typically mounted on the gable end of buildings although in some cases can be attached to the building side-walls. Systems up to 1 KW will cost around £3,000 and larger systems between 1.5 KW and 6 KW will cost around £4,000 to £18,000.
Micro Combined Heat and Power Units (CHP)
These systems are usually fuelled on gas, although some can burn a range of other fuels, and produce electrical power and thermal energy from the single fuel source. The two major types of engines used in microCHP systems are:
· Reciprocating engines—The electrical output of this type of micro-combined heat and power (microCHP) units typically start at about 5 KW offering around 10- 12 KW of thermal output.
· Stirling engines—These external combustion engines have a sealed system using an inert working fluid, usually helium or hydrogen. They range in size from ½ KW upwards and are currently undertaking extensive field trials with a view to having production units in 2008-09.
About 200 MicroCHP systems were undergoing field trials in households in 2004, and cost approximately £3,000. Mass-produced units are expected to be more cost-competitive.
|
| Heat Pumps
A heat pump moves heat energy from one place to another and changes the temperature from lower to higher. An example of a commonly known heat pump is a domestic refrigerator. Where heat pumps are used for heating applications, heat is removed from the source (ambient air, water, soil or bedrock) and then discharged where the heat is needed. Where cooling is required, the reverse happens and heat is removed and discharged into air, water, soil or rock. A typical system costs between £6,400 and £9,600 plus the price of the distribution system, although this is variable with each property and location. Based on current fuel prices, a ground source heat pump can be cheaper than space heating fuelled by oil, LPG and electric storage heaters.
Micro-Hydro
Harnessing hydro power at micropower level means levels typically less than 100 KW and involves utilising naturally flowing water on land, usually rivers and streams. The type of turbine that is submerged into the water depends upon the site, geological formation of the land and flow of water present. The performance and size of micro-hydro schemes is very site specific with plant ranging from a few hundred watts to 100 KW, with the higher range used for commercial schemes. For a low head system costs are around £4,000 per KW for projects under 10 KW (not including civil works) and for a medium head scheme, there is a fixed cost of £10,000 and then about £2,500 per KW for projects under 10 KW. A typical 5 KW domestic scheme may cost around £20,000 to £25,000; however, unit costs drop for larger schemes.
Biomass
Biomass heating involves the use of commercial energy crops in the form of fast-growing trees such as willow or poplar for woodchips or waste wood products such as sawdust, pallets or untreated recycled wood for pellets. The performance of biomass heating for a domestic property depends on the chosen system, usually either a space heating only, or a central heating and hot water system. Stand-alone stoves provide space heating for a room, and can be fitted with a back-burner to provide water heating. Boilers connected to a central heating and hot water system are larger and usually fuelled by logs, chips and pellets. Typical costs for stand-alone room heaters are between £1,500 and £3,000. Running costs are based on the type of fuel.
Fuel Cells
A fuel cell uses hydrogen and oxygen (from air) in an electrochemical reaction. Unlike technologies which "burn" fuel, with fuel cells the conversion takes place electrochemically without combustion. Fuel cells are used in portable applications (mobile phone and laptop battery replacements), mobile applications (cars, buses, planes, etc) and stationary applications (as UPS, standby power, distributed microCHP or as large MW electrical generator).
|
Source: Micropower Council, Ev 264-72
86. As is clear from table 1, the current uptake
of microtechnologies is low in the UK. The list of barriers to
take-up listed above again applies: concerns about costs, lack
of information about the availability and impact of products,
and about the means of installing them, and uncertainty about
the return to be had from them all prevent individual homeowners
and landlords from paying for and installing them. In some cases,
the need for planning permission for works—home wind generators,
for example—may also prove off-putting, and CLG is currently
consulting on whether planning restrictions in this area should
be loosened.[125]
87. Uncertainty is a significant barrier to take-up.
The National Housebuilding Council warns against consumers being
"exposed to unnecessary risks and used to trial zero-carbon
technologies and systems that have not undergone thorough testing
and accreditation."[126]
The Housing Corporation is undertaking research into what programmes
social landlords should consider in order to "moderate the
risk that landlords may undertake in implementing technologies
which are inappropriate or insufficiently developed."[127]
88. The major barrier is, however, cost. The major
home improvement supplier B&Q's most recent research found
72 per cent of its customers citing cost as the main thing deterring
them from taking up microgeneration, and 97 per cent citing cost
as an important factor.[128]
The cost, for example, of installing an average sized solar hot
water system in a new-build home is between £2,500 and £4,000,
with the problems of installing systems in existing housing likely
to add significant further costs.[129]
The Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford
suggests full low-carbon refurbishment of a home can cost between
£20,000 and £60,000.[130]
The Sustainable Development Commission agrees with the lower
end of that figure, citing £25,000 to £30,000.[131]
89. Grants are available for some microgeneration
works. The Low Carbon Buildings Programme has seen £21.5
million committed to projects in buildings including homes, schools
and businesses. About a third of it has gone to about 4,000 homes.[132]
The Government, via DEFRA and the Department for Business, Enterprise
and Regulatory Reform, has also announced an "Environmental
Transformation Fund" which will provide £370 million
to support the development and spread of new technologies. The
Micropower Council reports, however, that the number of grant-supported
installations remains low—just over 11,000 between 2003
and 2007.[133] The
number of non-grant-supported installations is unknown, meaning
the precise spread of the new technologies is also unknown. We
recommend that the Government undertake research into the number
of non-grant-supported microtechnology installations in the UK
to provide an accurate picture of their spread and take-up.
90. The cost of installing microgeneration technology
can, of course, be offset by the reduced cost of lower energy
usage. Alternatively, some technologies can provide an income
stream to householders, most obviously those which produce electricity
that can be sold back to the National Grid. Ofgem, the energy
companies' regulator, estimates that about 1,500 customers producing
electricity are doing just that at present.[134]
The drawback is that although those consumers are receiving the
wholesale price of electricity for the surplus that they produce,
this still means it will take an average 20 years or more to return
the cost of installing the average household microgeneration unit
(based on solar panels or roof-top wind turbines usually). Several
other countries have offered significantly higher returns on householder
investment: in Germany, for example, householders who supply electricity
to the equivalent of the Grid receive a Government-subsidised
"feed-in" tariff of up to four times the wholesale price.[135]
The Government is currently reviewing financial incentives for
microgeneration. We recommend
that as part of its current review of financial incentives the
Government investigate the potential for subsidising feed-in tariffs
to encourage the uptake of home microgeneration technologies.'
Market development
91. A further significant barrier to the spread
of microtechnologies is simply lack of availability. Information
on what is available is poor and the costs are high largely because
a fully fledged market for micropower products has not yet developed
in the UK, in the way that it has in various other countries.
Germany, for example, employs around quarter of a million people
in the renewables sector; the UK employs about 25,000. Germany
has 200 times the solar capacity and 10 times the wind energy
capacity that Britain currently possesses.[136]
The Government's strategic approach rests on the new build sector:
as zero-carbon homes and Eco-Towns prove the value of microgeneration
technologies, the argument goes, so they will become more visible
to the wider population and so the unit cost will fall as demand
for them rises. As the Minister for Housing told us:
The real prize will be if what we do on new build
creates enough economies of scale to bring down the costs of those
technologies that you can then apply them in a retrofitting way
to existing properties as well.[137]
92. There is general agreement that this approach
could expand the market, but means of speeding up market development
have been suggested, too. The Micropower Council suggests that
setting specific microgeneration take-up targets would give private
sector investors confidence to invest in new manufacturing and
installation capacity.[138]
The National Housing Federation believes extending the requirement
in the Code for Sustainable Homes that social housing achieve
level 3 from 2008 to private sector homes would also provide a
spur to the industry to innovate and invest.[139]
Finally, Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute argues
the inverse that using public sector investment to install microtechnologies
more widely would pump prime the industry's innovation and development:
By creating a market for innovative refurbishment
projects, the public sector will attract innovators from the private
sector and send a signal to the construction industry supply chain
that new products and techniques are set to take a significant
share of the market.[140]
The Stern review of the economics of climate change
argued strongly that investment now would prevent the payment
of even higher future costs.
Box 5: Experience in Germany
Planning, construction and engineering skills
93. One final point needs to be made about market development.
A market can develop only as fast as products can be produced,
supplied and installed. Several witnesses to our inquiry have
identified significant skills gaps that will act as barrier to
market spread unless skills develop. The Commission for Architecture
and the Built Environment identifies a need to raise skills across
the board:
local authorities are currently under-resourced (both building
control and planning departments) and engineering consultants
are struggling to find appropriately skilled employees.[144]
Brian Mark, on behalf of CIBSE, but himself director of an engineering
consultancy, confirmed this:
To be honest the planning department cannot afford to pay salaries
that I would pay for such people, and I cannot find them. It is
the same with building controls.[145]
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors suggests lifelong,
and compulsory, training in sustainability should become a core
principle for everyone working in the built environment.[146]
The National House Building Council says current evidence calls
into question the ability of local authorities, especially smaller
ones, to "deal with the technical aspects of sustainability."[147]
Jack Pringle, former President of the Royal Institute of British
Architects, believes the simple pace of change has left planning
departments behind:
All the professions have existed in a world where they have not
had to carry out low-energy designs and yet almost immediately,
within the space of one or two years, a completely new design
technology needs to be brought to bear.[148]
Dr Hywel Davies, CIBSE, expands on this point:
building control officers tend to come from a background where
they have specialised in structural issues. They are, rightly,
more concerned about ensuring buildings do not fall down or burn
down. They generally see CO2 emissions as being a lower priority.[149]
And Nicholas Doyle of the housing provider Places for People sets
out the consequences of this:
[It is] the poor old planning officer at the bottom who has to
deal with all of these planning applications, who has to turn
them round in X number of days or whatever it is. They are hugely
under-resourced, they have no confidence with which to make long-term
decisions whatsoever, and they are really struggling, and until
we start investing in planning departments or finding an alternative
method, whether that is allowing renewables by default or whatever
it is, we are going to have an enormous bottleneck in terms of
installing renewables and other technologies in existing homes.[150]
94. The depth of concern about planning skills has led us to launch
our own separate inquiry into that subject, and detailed analysis
of the problem and recommendations for action will follow later
this year. For now, however, we note that the Local Government
Association has called for the development of a national strategy
aimed at significantly raising skill levels in the planning, construction
and retrofitting trades.[151]
In addition, we note that the Sustainable Development Commission
called in July 2006 for greater attention in construction training
to the skills needed for refurbishment of existing housing.[152]
We call on the Government to make
an early assessment of skills deficits across the planning, construction
and retrofitting industries, and to engage in dialogue with the
construction industry on improving training in skills required
for refurbishment and renovation of existing homes. We intend
to return to this area in more detail later this year during our
inquiry into Planning Skills.
122 Q 247 Back
123
Source: 'Our energy challenge: Microgeneration Strategy:
Power from the people' Department of Trade and Industry, March
2006. http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file27575.pdf Back
124
Ev 266 Back
125
Ev 289 Back
126
Ev 52 Back
127
Ev 275 Back
128
Ev 63 Back
129
HC Deb, 16 October 2007, Col 1039W Back
130
Ev 256 Back
131
Ev 218-23 Back
132
Ev 285 Back
133
Ev 266 Back
134
Ofgem, Press release: Better Information and Easier Access
to Incentives Needed for Customers Selling Electricity Generated
in the Home, 11 March 2008, and Factsheet 74: Reviewing
the Microgeneration Market, both at www.ofgem.gov.uk Back
135
Brenda Boardman, Home Truths: A Low-carbon strategy to
reduce UK housing emissions by 80% by 2050, University of
Oxford's Environmental Change Institute, the Co-operative Bank
and Friends of the Earth, November 2007, p. 62 Back
136
Ev 158 Back
137
Q 76 Back
138
Ev 266 Back
139
Ev 72 Back
140
Ev 257 Back
141
Q 2 Back
142
Q 14 Back
143
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Climate Change:
a "citizen's agenda", Eighth Report of Session 2006-07,
HC88-I, para 131, and passim Back
144
Ev 178 Back
145
Q 176 Back
146
Ev 205 Back
147
Ev 52 Back
148
Q 46 Back
149
Q 179 Back
150
Q 233 Back
151
Ev 303 Back
152
Sustainable Development Commission, Stock Take: delivering
improvements in existing housing, July 2006, p. 21 Back
|
