POLICY ZERO CARBON HOMES
CARBONCEILING O
After the government unexpectedly watered down its commitment to introducing ‘zero carbon’ new homes, the future housing stock will be at best low carbon, writes Nigel Banks
n taking office last year, the new government made clear in its ‘coalition agreement’ that it was committed to
ensuring that all new homes would be ‘zero carbon’ from 2016. This was to be achieved by a combination of on-site ‘carbon compliance’ and ‘allowable solutions’, which together would offset all of the expected annual CO2 emissions from a dwelling. The result would be a net-zero carbon home that would be equivalent to a dwelling built to Level 6 of the revised Code for Sustainable Homes (the Code’s highest level). ‘Carbon compliance’ measures are
those which are installed on the individual dwelling or directly connected to it, such as district heating. These measures are largely aimed at cutting ‘regulated’ energy use; that is, activities that come under the scope of the Building Regulations (space heating, domestic hot water, lighting, cooling and ventilation). ‘Allowable solutions’ were proposed
in 2008 as a way to address unregulated energy use and also to help challenging sites offset all their remaining carbon emissions if this could not be done through carbon compliance alone. Allowable solutions enable these sites to offset their remaining regulated emissions, as well as those that are not subject to the Building Regulations – such as cooking and energy used by domestic appliances, which typically add another 50% to 100% to the regulated emissions. The proposed allowable solutions included fitting energy efficient appliances, investing in local low carbon energy infrastructure, retrofitting works to existing homes, and off-site renewable energy. Last year I sat on the Carbon Compliance
38 CIBSE Journal July 2011
Task Group of the Zero Carbon Hub, the cross-sector body set up to work with industry and advise the government. After six months’ work and a number of consultation events, the Hub produced a report in February this year recommending appropriate minimum standards for on-site carbon compliance. The report proposed a minimum standard for all new low-rise homes, based on a reduction of regulated emissions of between 44% and 60% (depending on the type of dwelling) from 2006 levels. The remaining regulated and all the unregulated emissions could then be tackled through further reductions on site or via allowable solutions. This was all reasonably clear but in March
this year, in the ‘Plan for Growth’ document, published alongside the 2011 Budget papers, the government moved the goal posts on how the industry should define a ‘zero carbon’ home, making it clear that it agreed with the recommended carbon compliance levels. However, in a highly unexpected move, the document also indicated that carbon savings will not have to be made from cooking or unregulated plug-in electrical appliances (those not coming under the Building Regulations). The reason given is that emissions from these appliances will be offset via policies, including the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. However, carbon savings from cooking appliances are not covered by the scheme!
Watered down The effect of this apparent re-clarification of ‘zero carbon’ homes is to water down the Hub’s original definition quite significantly. The change takes all unregulated emissions for cooking and appliances – which make up
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