EDITORIAL
FiT of rage may not be justified
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Editorial advisory panel George Adams, engineering director, Spie Matthew Hall Laurence Aston, director, Buro Happold
Annabel Clasby, mechanical building services engineer, Atkins
Patrick Conaghan, partner, Hoare Lea Consulting Engineers Rowan Crowley, director, einside track David Hughes, consultant Philip King, director, Hilson Moran
Chani Leahong, senior associate, Fulcrum Consulting Nick Mead, group technical director, Imtech Technical Services
Christopher Pountney, graduate engineer, AECOM
James Rene, engineer/acoustician, Max Fordham Alan Tulla, independent lighting consultant
Ged Tyrrell, managing director, Tyrrell Systems Ant Wilson, director, AECOM Terry Wyatt, consultant to Hoare Lea
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ABC audited circulation: 19,139 January to December 2010
J
ust another cost-cutting exercise to reduce the national debt, or a genuine attempt to improve a policy that has gone awry? There’s no doubt that virtually everyone involved
in the renewables industry will be up in arms over the government’s decision to cut by half the feed-in tariff (FiT) for solar photovoltaic (PV) installations (see News, page 6). What earthly justification is there, they will ask, for deliberately stymying a sector that is taking off? And why deter households with a new lower tariff that will mean it will take them around 18 years to break even on the costs of installation, instead of the current 10, according to estimates? The minister charged with ‘selling’ the cut, Greg Barker, argued
Before we pile on the PV panels, let’s make the structure as energy efficient as possible
that he wanted to avoid a ‘boom and bust’ in solar PV, the costs of which have fallen – which means that the government must seek ‘more value for money’ from the FiTs budget. This does indeed sound like penny-pinching. On the other hand, Barker is right to point to Germany as an example where PV was heavily subsidised and grew rapidly – sometimes at the expense of a more rational engineering-led approach that would assess whether it was the most appropriate application in the circumstances. Putting this argument in a broader context, it is now conventional wisdom that the best
approach to increasing energy efficiency in buildings is the ‘fabric first’ one. So, before we pile on the PV panels, let’s ensure we have made the structure as energy efficient as possible. This is not to say that the solar panel industry is wrong to challenge
the cuts – that is their prerogative. And they are right to point to apparently contradictory ministerial comments, which suggest that: a) the cuts will go ahead regardless, and b) a public consultation on the cuts will give the sector every opportunity to make its concerns known. With barely a fortnight between the consultation closing and the cuts beginning to take effect, one can’t help wondering whether such an exercise can be deemed fair and legal. But, cuts or no cuts, we must not forget that a self-interested rush
to grow a business sector as fast as we can should not blind us to the need to step back and assess whether such growth is truly the best way, long term, to cut energy use and carbon emissions.
Bob Cervi, Editor
bcervi@cibsejournal.com
www.cibsejournal.com
December 2011 CIBSE Journal
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