NEWS
Energy Bill aims to unlock £110bn of energy spending
that they acknowledge the level of challenge for the UK to have adequate energy supplies to 2020. ‘However, they’ve got to make the agreement stick – the real killer is if there is uncertainty. It kills investor confidence and could make £110bn of investment a pipedream.’
Ed Davey secured £7.6bn for low energy power generation in Coalition agreement
l Coalition agreement paves way for Energy Bill
Coalition partners have reached agreement on the detail of the Energy Bill, which aims to unlock up to £110bn of private investment in new energy infrastructure. Energy and climate change secretary Ed Davey said the agreement would allow the government to meet legally binding carbon reduction and renewable obligations. He said: ‘This is a durable agreement across the Coalition against which companies can invest and support jobs and our economic recovery.’
The government said a Levy
Control Framework would make £7.6bn available for low-carbon electricity investment, and it expected renewables to account
for 30% of electricity generation by 2020 compared to 11% today. However, green groups criticised the decision to delay the setting of a decarbonisation target until after the next election. The hold-up is likely to lead to an increase in gas investment in the short term.
Hywel Davies, technical director at CIBSE, said: ‘It is very important that the Coalition partners have now agreed on the Energy Bill and
Keeping the lights on
n Long-term contracts called Contracts for Difference will aim to provide stable revenues for investors in low energy carbon projects n The creation of a government-owned company providing long-term revenue support for low energy generators n The government will create a capacity market to ensure there is enough energy when Ofgem and National Grid identify energy shortages n Energy companies will be able to charge households an extra £7.6bn, to go towards low-carbon electricity infrastructure
During last month’s CIBSE Annual Lecture, Ofgem chief executive Alistair Buchanan warned that the country’s energy capacity would be at full stretch by 2015. He estimated that by 2015/16 there will be as little as 4% margin in UK installed capacity and the country could face rolling blackouts. Twenty-five per cent of total UK power generation is to be shut down over the next three years and Buchanan said it would be hard to plug the gap.
Alistair Buchanan’s lecture can be viewed as a webcast at:
www.cibse.org/annuallecture
Turn to page 18 for more on Alistair Buchanan’s lecture
In brief
SMART CONSULTATION The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has started a consultation into the roll-out of smart meters. The installation is due to take
place in two stages – Foundation and Mass Roll-out. The former began in April 2011 and will end with the start of mass roll-out in late 2014. The consultation seeks to
address arrangements for customers who already have a smart meter, seeking to change energy supplier.
www.decc.gov.uk
NOT SO SMART METERS Researchers at the University of South Carolina have revealed that so-called ‘smart meters’ can be a serious threat to the security of building occupants. They said some types of electricity meter broadcast unencrypted information that could be picked up by snoopers. AMR (automatic meter
reading) systems are already installed in one third of American homes and businesses to make it easier for utilities to collect energy use data. The UK government has
pledged to roll out smart meters to all British homes by 2020.
Government scraps annual DECs
Display Energy Certificates (DECs) for public buildings will only be required once a decade following a government decision made behind closed doors. In a letter, Don Foster MP states that it is currently policy not to go beyond the minimum requirements of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD): ‘When the threshold for DECs is lowered to 500 m2
for those smaller buildings will only need to be updated every 10 years.’ According to Foster, the current requirement for annual DECs was a decision taken by Labour. In response, CIBSE’s technical director Hywel Davies
www.cibsejournal.com in January, DECs
said: ‘It is even more disappointing and perverse that government proposals for extending DECs in public buildings are missing the chance to cut public sector energy demand – and the associated costs borne by taxpayers – by not introducing annual DECs to implement the recast EPBD.’ Meanwhile, the European Commission (EC) has started legal proceedings against the UK for failing to set out how it intends to implement the wider roll out of DECs to all public buildings. The UK faces a fine of 9.6m, followed by daily penalties of hundreds of thousands of Euros.
DCLG SET TO SIMPLIFY HOUSING STANDARDS The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has started a radical overhaul of the Building Regulations, according to The Guardian newspaper. A four-man ‘challenge
panel’ has been given the task of reducing the amount and complexity of regulations in order to help re-start the house- building market. Many of the previous restrictions on building housing extensions have already been removed and the panel has been given a ‘free rein’ to rationalise other standards, including those covering fire safety, energy use and access. The panel is due to report back to DCLG next spring.
December 2012 CIBSE Journal 7
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