NEWS
Domestic heating engineers ‘may lack appropriate skills’
In Brief
PFI REFORMS ‘STILL POSE RISK’ The government’s plans for a new approach to using the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) to fund public sector schemes poses further risks, according to a committee of MPs. The Commons Treasury Select Committee says in a report that the new plans appeared to still carry some ‘defects’ associated with the established PFI system.
www.parliament.uk/treascom
HILSON MORAN BUYOUT Hilson Moran, the engineering and environmental consultancy, has been bought by its management after 10 years under the ownership of Paris-based Altran Technologies. The fi rm employs more than 200 staff and has worked on such high-profi le projects as the ‘Gherkin’ at 30 St Mary Axe in the City of London. The takeover was funded by the venture capital company Albion Ventures.
GETHING SUPPORTS FORDHAM Sustainability expert Bill Gething is collaborating with building services engineering consultants Max Fordham to develop the work of its sustainability consultancy team. Gething, a former partner of Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, is a visiting professor at the University of Bath.
INVESTING IN RENEWABLES Companies have announced plans for almost £2.5bn worth of investment in renewable energy projects in the UK, with the potential to create almost 12,000 jobs across the country, according to the latest research from the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The fi gures were part of a report to the European Commission, which also showed that the UK has increased its renewable energy consumption by 27%.
www.decc.gov.uk
Home heating revolution essential, says academy
‘To attempt to meet the whole of such a load by
● Report highlights lack of necessary skills among domesic heating engineers
The UK will not meet its carbon reduction targets without a total revolution in the way it heats its homes, according to the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE). In its report ‘Heat: Degrees of Comfort’, the RAE
states that even with the most modern gas boilers and high levels of insulation, ‘we cannot continue to heat so many homes by natural gas and still achieve the 80% cut in emissions’. It also highlights the lack of appropriate skills
among domestic heating engineers to work with renewables, heat pumps and other alternative heating technologies. It quotes a number of examples where poor installation of low carbon systems had left consumers paying more for their heating. ‘To switch a large part of the domestic heating load
to electric heating would greatly increase the demand on the grid and increase the challenge of meeting peaks in demand,’ the report says.
renewables would require a level of installed capacity that would be almost impossible to build. Storage, whether of natural gas, biomass, large-scale thermal storage will be essential.’ Many renewable solutions are too expensive and paybacks too long for the mass market, it adds. Professor Roger Kemp of Lancaster University, who
chairs the Academy’s Heat working group, said the government was only ‘just coming to terms’ with the complexity of managing the country’s energy systems in a way that ‘reduces CO2, avoids expensive imports, ensures energy security, does not exacerbate fuel poverty, supports job creation and works with, rather than against, the competitive market’. He pointed out that there were a number of technologies, such as micro-CHP, that could make a signifi cant contribution to carbon reduction, ‘but are incompatible with the 80% target’ because they are not renewables.
For more information visit:
www.raeng.org.uk/heat
United States ‘10 years ahead’ on smart grids
Creating a series of local ‘smart grids’ would substantially reduce the projected £200bn cost of upgrading the UK’s national grid, according to energy suppliers and engineers. At a recent CIBSE/ASHRAE
Group webinar supported by the HVCA and held at London South Bank University, energy experts heard that the US was already 10 years ahead of Europe in developing a smart grid strategy. It will produce a smart grid
10 CIBSE Journal February 2012
standard for public review later this year and is now seeking international involvement. Stephen Bushby from the US
National Institute for Standards (NIST) said it was time to get away from the ‘monolithic’ format of central power generation. ‘The electric grid ... is no longer fi t for purpose and is inherently ineffi cient. The top 20% of generating capacity is only needed 5% of the time; so we develop all that expensive
capacity for it only to be used once every 20 days.’ He said the future depends on harnessing smart technologies to smooth out the peaks and troughs in power demand, said Bushby. The draft standard produced
by NIST – with input from 700 parties in the US – envisages a grid that has major input from renewables and is a distributed system made up of micro-grids that can sell local power back into the national network.
www.cibsejournal.com
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