Examination of Witnesses (Questions 208-219)
MR DAVID
COWANS AND
MR NICHOLAS
DOYLE
19 NOVEMBER 2007
Q208 Chair: Can I check if you have been
listening to the whole session?
Mr Cowans: Yes.
Q209 Chair: If as we go on there
are comments you want to make from your experience as landlords
and developers on some of the points that have been made by others
would you slot them in where appropriate? I want to start off
by asking how it is that your housing has got SAP ratings significantly
higher than the national average for owner-occupied or rental
property.
Mr Cowans: I will kick off and
Nicholas can help me along. Several years ago we decided that
we ought to adopt an affordable warmth strategy, which was primarily
around effectively insulating our property, and we struck a joint
venture arrangement with Powergen, and I think it is a good example
of how organisations should work together with energy providers
to create more insulated property. I agree with the earlier speaker
who has more technical knowledge than I do that the easy wins
are the simplest things. In fact, I think an element of our submission
is how you get those early wins into as many properties as possible
as quickly as possible We directed existing finances towards relatively
straightforward insulation such as draught stripping programmes.
As I have listened to the debate I think one of the bits that
we should have reflected more strongly in our submission is the
whole notion of area approaches to adopting energy efficiency.
We are also very keen on micro energy production, but if you do
not do that the scale then does not work, so area based approaches,
perhaps to do bigger agency services, perhaps also bringing in
some of those micro energy production operations, are needed,
and our strategy has been to learn by doing. We have gone out
and struck a deal with a solar panel producer and struck a deal
with a wind turbine company and tried these things. That would
be my view.
Mr Doyle: What I would add to
that is that the deal with Powergen is through the Energy Efficiency
Commitment and I think it is the exception that proves the rule
in lots of ways. The Energy Efficiency Commitment is by far the
simplest and most straightforward way of bringing investment into
the existing stock. It works phenomenally well and if social landlords
or other landlords have not used Energy Efficiency Commitment
funding then they should do because it is very easy to do, it
does all of the good things that you have been talking about earlier.
It is dead easy to do, it is not bureaucratic. It is managed by
the energy companies who make it very easy to do.
Q210 Chair: Is it open to large private
landlords as well?
Mr Doyle: Yes. There are certain
categories within it, so, for example, 50% of the funding in the
Energy Efficiency Commitment in the current round has to go to
those in priority groups, largely those who receive benefits,
but that leaves 50% who are not.
Q211 Chair: Which would probably
not apply to the large private sector landlords, from what we
heard before, I suspect. Most of the measures that you have taken
have been taken by your organisation rather than your tenants.
Is that right? Have your tenants taken any initiatives at all
or have they just been grateful?
Mr Doyle: In broad terms, no.
Clearly there are individual cases such as where a personal commitment
has meant that somebody has done something which changed their
behaviour. I think the traditional relationship is that landlords
are the ones who are responsible for improving the properties,
and that should remain the case; we should be responsible for
maintaining and improving the assets and improving what we are
offering to residents. Broadly speaking, no, residents have not
taken action themselves. The one area that we need to do more
on is in resident behaviour and one of the things we have found
is that by making the connection between people's behaviour and
the cost or carbon reduction it makes an enormous difference.
We have installed those display meters you were talking about
earlier and it has had a dramatic effect on people's behaviour.
You should see the difference in terms of the way the family operates.
The children run around the house turning items off (or turning
items on to begin with) but it makes that connection that we lost
a number of years ago between turning a switch on and what the
cost impact or carbon impact of that is. It would be good to see
those more widely used than they are at the moment because it
does make a difference.
John Cummings: You have obviously trialled
various measures. Can you tell the Committee which have been the
most energy efficient measures—heat pumps, solar panels,
wind turbines or district heating schemes?
Q212 Chair: And can I just remind
you that this inquiry is looking at existing housing? I know that
one of the schemes you have suggested does not exist in this new
housing, so perhaps you could stick to the existing housing.
Mr Doyle: In some senses I would
endorse what one of the other speakers said. There is a fairly
clear hierarchy in terms of effective measures. I would probably
put solar thermal at the top of that. It is easy, simple, it fits
with existing plumbing by and large, and it is relatively cheap
and straightforward. Photovoltaics—
Q213 Martin Horwood: It is not cheap.
Mr Doyle: It depends who you get
it from.
Q214 Chair: We have already indulged
our private experience. We had better not go down which builders
we have used and which we have not.
Mr Doyle: Certainly photovoltaic
is still extraordinarily expensive. The hope that the economies
of scale would kick in has not materialised, largely because the
rest of the world is installing PV at a phenomenal rate, so any
increase in the manufacturing capability has been taken up by
Japan, Germany and even the United States and Canada. Ground source
heat pumps definitely have a role to play, a very specific role,
I would say, certainly in electrically heated properties and totally
off-gas properties. They probably do not compete particularly
well with traditional gas central heating, again for the reasons
that were pointed out earlier. Wind turbines offer something of
a challenge. They have got enormous potential. It would be great
to be sitting here in a few years' time saying that wind turbines,
certainly in the urban environment, really do play a strong role.
I do not think the products are there yet. I think there is a
great deal of over-promise and under-delivery so far. I think,
like lots of renewables, it is still very small, almost a cottage
industry. They are feeling their way to the market. The market
has not been sustained for long enough and wind turbines could
be at serious risk of ruining their own market in the next few
years if they do not start getting it right.
Q215 John Cummings: District heating
schemes?
Mr Doyle: The order of magnitude
in terms of capital investment is phenomenal compared to the others.
Clearly we have got the heating plant itself, we have also got
the heating infrastructure. It would be fantastic if the financial
incentives were available to make that a viable option, but they
do not exist yet. If fuel prices continue to rise as they do that
may well solve itself.
Q216 Chair: Can I just go back to
wind power? Have you used wind power on any of your developments
which are existing housing?
Mr Doyle: We have trialled the
grand total of two wind turbines. They were the only two we have
got on a building. The others that we went to see I would not
put on anything, so we are trying them just to see the what the
difference between promise and delivery is.
Q217 Chair: So these are little turbines,
one per house?
Mr Doyle: On a flatted development.
Mr Cowans: There is a more general
point for me in that one of the big impacts on existing housing
is methods by which we can stimulate research and development
for these technologies because they are very small producers often.
We took an active stake in a solar power manufacturer, not only
to demonstrate our commitment but to help them keep the business
on, and we need to do a lot more of that R&D. Simply to introduce
some big programmes against very uncertain technologies does not
seem to be a very sensible strategy but we also take the view
that this is an urgent matter, so we need to get those renewables
and those technologies up to a robust level quickly, and one of
the fastest things to do is just to learn what other people are
doing in other parts of the world because they are doing much
more than we are in all sorts of ways. We have tried to give you
some examples in our submission and some of those things other
people have mentioned. We have not got a lot of time, so rather
than reinvent the wheel in that sense we need to look at what
other people are doing, especially on the robustness of the technologies.
Q218 Chair: So are there other countries
which have an existing housing stock which is as energy inefficient
as ours and that they are trying to improve—as opposed to
Scandinavia which has got very efficient stuff before they start?
Mr Doyle: I think there are probably
plenty of examples. Ireland and Greece have just been mentioned
to you. Even places like Canada do not have particularly energy
efficient housing stock. They have better housing stock in some
ways because the weather has pushed them down a particular route.
Japan does not have particularly energy efficient housing. They
have gone down the technical submission approach. We do not compare
particularly well with some northern European countries. We compare
reasonably well with the rest of the world.
Q219 Martin Horwood: Can I ask specifically
on urban wind, are you saying that these little turbines are just
more valuable as art rather than as energy generation, or is that
the kind of model that does work?
Mr Doyle: I think they will have
improved in the heat of battle but I think it is going to be a
while before they prove that the capital investment is worth it
in terms of what they offer. The urban environment is the worst
place to put a wind turbine.
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