BCIA President, Steve Harrison (pictured) explains why energy efficiency should be taken more seriously by government that is often too focused on energy supply rather than demand.
I
t is only about four months until the deadline for the first compliance period under the Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) in early December 2015. We have been seeing news stories throughout this year that many eligible organisations have left preparation for ESOS quite late – in February there were news stories that half of UK manufacturers hadn’t even heard of ESOS.
Doubtless there will be a last-minute rush, and Lead ESOS assessors are going to have a bit of a bumper year as their scarcity pushes up the price of an audit. Compliance with ESOS is not a one-day job: it requires the collection and collation of a lot of data which is bound to take some time to put together – another good reason to start working on compliance as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this is all quite a familiar story when it comes to government attempts to make buildings more energy efficient. Commenting in the press earlier this month, Andrew Warren of the Association for the Conservation of Energy noted the quiet demise of the Energy Efficiency Delivery Office (EEDO). This was a government department that
was greeted with cheers by those of us who were concerned that saving energy was not considered important by government. However, all EEDO achieved was a review of the barriers to greater energy efficiency (something many of our leading research institutions had already done) before it disappeared without a trace.
Targets
Given that the Government has also recently abandoned its targets for carbon neutral buildings, it is difficult not to wonder about its commitment to ESOS: just how closely will the scheme be checked?
It is challenging to work out why Government seems to have such a hard time getting to grips with energy efficiency. Carbon is difficult for consumers and business managers to envisage or quantify so it is something that governments had to create a market for to encourage ‘trading’. And that was not very successful. But energy already has a measure – pounds and pence. It is something that householders and business alike understand all too well. It seems that no one in government is
making the link between energy efficiency and reducing our need for more supply. Britain is closing down its coal-fired power stations to save carbon emissions. A laudable objective, many would agree. However, the unintended result is that by winter of 2015 the gap between energy demand and power supply across the country will be the smallest it has been since 2005. In that year, supply was only about 1% above demand at peak times. That’s a very narrow margin. Current calculations show that we could be hovering at a demand-supply difference of about 1.2% in the winter of 2015. We were fortunate in 2014 because a mild winter meant that demand was slightly lower than expected. But knowing how unpredictable our weather is, no one would bet against a chilly turn in December and January.
Energy policy
Anyone involved in supplying, using or managing energy won’t find this news surprising. Britain doesn’t operate a big margin between its supply and demand of energy, which is usually around 4%. Nor is it surprising that the Government has
not really addressed this problem in ten years. The UK’s energy policy is sadly lacking in direction and cohesion, which is how we ended up where we are now – relying on the weather to be better than it ought to be and muddling through. In spite of a lack of real policy on energy efficiency, it has to be said that the UK has not done too badly in managing energy use. The country’s GDP is now double what it was in 1980, but our energy demand has not risen much beyond where it stood three decades ago. We have learned to do more with less, as consumers and businesses.
But energy efficiency has to be taken more seriously than a series of schemes such as EPCs and ESOS. There should be a long-term policy direction from government to support investment in energy efficiency, as well as supply. It is ironic that a government so focused on finding savings cannot see the value in reducing energy waste.
Steve Harrison is President of the Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA) and business development manager for Belimo Automation AG.
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