Renewables Commissioning
Some building services
commissioners are wrongly
looking at renewables as a
‘fashion statement’, or as
a means of ticking boxes
on local authority targets,
according to critics.
> in favour of renewables, but we mustn’t lose sight of biggest demand may not be heating, but hot water. In
the economics: renewables are expensive. The trouble an office, on the other hand, hot water demand will
is that people are looking at the issue of renewables the probably be much lower because people don’t tend to
wrong way around by going in for fashion statements. have baths and do their washing there.
They are constructing wind turbines, attaching ‘We need to look at load profiles and match the
photovoltaics, and so on, without really thinking renewable strategy to align with the profile of heating,
about it. cooling and electrical generation that is needed.’
‘The returns on investment are nowhere near as The trouble is that there is a temptation for
good as getting the basics right first. Unfortunately, consultants to opt for highly visible renewable
some within the industry are missing this point.’ technologies – which some have dubbed sustainability >
FiTs: windfall from micro-generation
In the UK we really should be
Other countries have used clean energy cash-backs, otherwise known as
tackling renewable policy on a
feed-in tariffs (FiTs), to promote small- as well as large-scale renewable energy
national rather than on an individual
production. FiTs are set to come to the UK in April 2010. They work by financially
basis – James Thonger
rewarding owners of electricity-generating renewable technologies such as wind
turbines and solar photovoltaic panels for the clean energy they produce.
Nonetheless, once the basics have been taken care of,
Jemma Robinson of the Renewable Energy Association says: ‘Proposals indicate
renewable technologies do have a valuable part to play
that tariff mechanisms will offer a fixed-term payment for the amount of
in a vast array of projects, both large and small. In its
renewable energy generated, a fixed payment for the amount of renewable energy
recent report, Small-scale Renewables and Low Carbon
exported back to the grid, and consumers will also benefit from savings made by
Technology: Non-domestic Permitted Development Review
generating their own energy.’
(www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planning
According to Pedro Guertler, head of research at the Association for the
andbuilding/smallscalereview), the Department for
Conservation of Energy, the subsidy for those installing or commissioning
Communities and Local Government sets out a broad
micro-generation technology – probably 30p to 40p for every kWh of electricity
range of issues that surround renewable technologies
generated, plus an extra 5p for each kWh of electricity exported back to the grid
such as solar, wind, hydro, biomass and combined heat
– will help kickstart electricity micro-generation in the UK.
and power systems.
Guertler adds: ‘What the government aims to do with this level of subsidy is
However, for Wilson, the critical design consideration
to create a rate of return on ‘typical’ – whatever that means – micro-generation
for consultants is the energy demand profile of the
installations of about seven per cent, which is what investors need to invest in
building. He offers this example: ‘If they are dwellings,
funding. That would make plenty of installations commercially viable.’
for instance, then solar thermal is sensible because the
44 CIBSE Journal January 2010 www.cibsejournal.com
CIBSEjan10 pp42-44,46 Renewables.indd 44 18/12/09 12:42:03
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