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EXISTING HOUSING AND CLIMATE CHANGE

 

MEMORANDUM FROM THE HOME BUILDERS FEDERATION

 

1. The Home Builders Federation (HBF) is the principal trade body representing private home builders in England and Wales. Our members include companies of all sizes, ranging from major national companies through regional businesses to smaller, local companies. Between them, our members are responsible for about 80% of the new homes built each year.

 

Introduction

 

2. The companies represented by HBF primarily build new homes and are not usually involved directly in work to improve the condition and performance of the existing housing stock. In the context of current action to tackle climate change, however, we do see a number of ways in which the work of home builders may also bring benefits in tackling the energy and carbon efficiency of the existing stock. We seek to explain these potential synergies in this Memorandum.

 

Detailed comments

 

The significance of tackling the existing stock

 

3. It is undoubtedly the case that the energy efficiency of the existing housing stock is a far more important factor overall in determining the country's ability to reduce carbon emissions than that of newly built homes.

4. There are some 25 million existing homes which will still constitute two thirds of the housing stock by 2050 even allowing for an increased rate of housing supply in the interim. The energy efficiency of many of these homes is considerably less than that of homes being built to the current Part L 2006 building regulations and will compare less favourably still as we move towards the objective of building to a national zero carbon standard from 2016.

5. As a result of the 2006 Part L regulations, homes being built today are 40% more energy efficient than those built under building regulations current 5 years' ago. Taking a longer-term view, Victorian houses are up to six times less energy efficient than those of today.

 

The approach on new build and its relevance to the existing stock

 

6. The HBF is working closely with Government and other stakeholders with a view to achieving the twin objectives of an improved housing supply of 240,000 annual net additions to the stock and zero carbon performance standards for all new homes from 2016 onwards. The HBF's Executive Chairman, Stewart Baseley, jointly chairs the 2016 Task Force overseeing work on these objectives with the Housing and Planning Minister.

7. The agreed approach in pursuing the zero carbon standard is to make three further changes to the Part L regulations so as to increase energy and carbon efficiency standards compared to the 2006 regulations by 25% in 2010 and 44% in 2013 before requiring the zero carbon standard itself from 2016.

8. This clear set of national steps will provide the framework within which home builders can work with the supply chain and energy providers to identify the best solutions for achieving the zero carbon standard as effectively and efficiently as possible.

9. A number of home builders are already undertaking projects to explore how to achieve higher standards of carbon efficiency and, in addition, there will be structured opportunities for demonstration projects via initiatives such as English Partnerships' Carbon Challenge and the Government's plans for a number of new eco-towns. HBF and its members are actively participating in all these discussions.

10. The HBF believes that arising from this approach there could be a number of opportunities or outcomes that might also be helpful in seeking improvements to the energy efficiency of the existing housing stock.

11. The most obvious such opportunity is likely to result from the further innovations and proving of technologies inherent in the zero carbon homes objective. While it is common ground between HBF and many other bodies that the first priority is to make further improvements to the fabric efficiency of new homes, we do not expect to be able to achieve the zero carbon standard purely through this means. There will be residual heating and power needs that will need to be met by appropriate forms of low and zero carbon generation.

12. Whether such needs can best be met in particular cases through micro-generation, on site facilities, community energy supplies or via additional low and zero generation capacity accessible through the grid is still a matter of some uncertainty. Many of the technologies that might be used are not yet adequately proven in terms of their performance outputs and durability in given contexts.

13. An important outcome - if the zero carbon objective is to be met successfully - will therefore be to establish clarity about the capabilities of particular technologies and low and zero carbon energy supply facilities and scenarios. This knowledge should in turn be relevant and helpful to efforts to improve the energy efficiency of the existing housing stock which is equally likely to require low carbon solutions for residual energy requirements over and above what can be achieved through improvements to fabric efficiency.

14. A more profound potential synergy should also be actively considered. Since the average new build development is quite small - perhaps 30 or 40 homes - we think that technically effective and commercially viable solutions for providing a post-2016 residual energy supply will often need to be non-site specific. If so, that consideration immediately opens up the question of how a sufficient critical mass of consumers can be assembled to underpin investment in new facilities.

15. One way in which this might happen would be for a facility to serve both existing and new homes in an area. Efficiency - including via balancing the load of demand as evenly as possible through the day - could prospectively be further increased by also including non-domestic forms of demand such as local commercial, retail, office and public amenities.

16. We are currently discussing such possibilities with Government, energy companies and others via the 2016 Task Force process. These discussions are at a very early stage so we cannot yet set down firm conclusions on the scale of opportunity that might realistically be available. We do believe, however, that where feasible such an approach could yield significant benefits for all parties.

17. We should add that in order to explore such ideas it will also be necessary to consider how the regulatory regime affecting the generation, transportation, trading, balancing and sale of energy affects the ease and viability of what we might call new forms of community-wide energy generation and supply. These issues are already being looked at in the context of the Government's objectives for promoting renewable energy supply, but the need for a reduced carbon footprint for new and existing homes is introducing an important new dimension to such discussions. Overall we do not consider that existing rules are yet sufficient to encourage the necessary investment flows.

18. A further link to other policy objectives may lie in the way in which the Energy Efficiency Commitment evolves in future. In particular, HBF believes it might be helpful and worthwhile to look into how the future CERT scheme could assist the development of new low and zero carbon community-wide energy supply facilities of the type outlined above. An appropriate element of financial contribution linked to such new facilities through a post-2011 CERT scheme could in principle make them easier and more viable to bring forward and would seem to be consistent with wider Government objectives in this field.

 

Other issues

 

19. Among other issues raised by the Committee's inquiry we would wish to draw attention to the importance of establishing effective and trusted means for accrediting new technologies relevant to the achievement of energy and carbon efficiency objectives for housing.

20. It is vital that such assurance mechanisms are present and robust in order to avoid the risk that public confidence will be lost in policy objectives and actions to promote energy efficiency. This is certainly a very material consideration for new build where we have pointed out to Government that it would be counterproductive for all parties if inadequately tested technologies and processes were rolled out, leading to consumer concerns and a loss of confidence in the product and the process. These concerns would be no less for measures relating to the existing housing stock.

21. Secondly, we welcome the introduction of Energy Performance Certificates. We consider these will help to encourage greater public interest in energy efficient homes although it is not clear at present that they will rapidly lead to a decisive change in perceptions given the very pressing concerns that exist about housing availability and affordability.

 

 

 

HBF

28 September 2007