January 2012
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comment By Edward Mayer
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how to make your eco home even more eco friendly
www.swift-conservation.com. So you’ve taken the big decision, you are
going to build yourself an eco home. Well done! As well as reducing your carbon foot- print, you’ll have economy and comfort at a time when fuel prices are soaring and the economic future looks very uncertain. But while you will be warm and protected, what will be happening to the wildlife all about your new home? The answer is that it won’t be doing well
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at all. Our wildlife is declining at an alarming speed. By some estimates we have lost 90 per cent of our bats in the past century or so. Certainly we have lost about half our birds in the past 40 years, some species crashing by as much as 70 per cent or more. One way of looking at the eco home is to perceive it as a sealed box; sealed to keep the heat in and the cold out. Modern houses are sealed, insulated, even mechanically ventilated, whereas older buildings had open eaves, and open gables, and in many cases apertures around pipes and drains where birds and bats could rest and breed. However, your eco home can support bats and birds, all beneficial species that
you will enjoy having around, if you can fit places for them to rest and breed. It’s easy to do, won’t cost much, and they
can be fitted without compromising the insu- lation of the building. You just have to get the right items, and fit them in the right places, as every species has its likes, its dislikes, and its needs, and they are all different. Swifts, for example, need our help really badly if they are to survive, and making places for them is really easy. The simplest option is to fit nest bricks into
the structure of your eco home. These are usually made of concrete or recycled materi- als and should be designed in at an early stage. Nest bricks are available for a very wide range of birds and bat species and are now made by at least four manufacturers.
feed-in tariff cuts ruled ‘unlawful’ On 21st
December, the High Court upheld
a legal challenge made by Friends of the Earth and two solar firms against the decision to cut the feed-in tariff incentives for solar PV installations. The decision by the government to bring the cut-off date for the higher Feed-in Tariff forward to the 12th
Tony O’Connor, managing director of BritishEco, described feeling hopeful that the ruling ‘will prevent the government from making decisions in this manner in the future’. Whilst the ruling has received a largely
December, before the consultation
period had finished, was the basis for the challenge. The Court ruled that the government
had breached rules that governed consul- tation exercises by allowing the cuts to the feed-in tariff incentives to apply to installa- tions that were completed before the con- sultation period was finished. Mr Justice Mitting commented that the ministers were ‘proposing to make an unlawful decision’, and as a result the Court would be ‘amenable to judicial review’. The ruling marks a triumph for the solar
PV industry, who viewed the cuts as too soon and too harsh. The changes to the feed-in Tariff are thought to be responsible for hundreds of either unfinished or planned projects being cancelled, caus- ing financial loss and an unstable footing for the industry.
positive response from the renewable energy industry, some have expressed concern over the lack of clarity about the effects of the ruling and whether the feed- in tariff is set to change again. The true impact of this ruling won’t be clear until the government outline the appropriate action to take, which may not be announced until after 4th
January when it is thought the
Energy Ministers will be seeking to appeal the decision. For now, the future of Solar PV can
be regarded with some positivity. As Tony O’Connor explained: “Whatever the out- come is, we will adapt accordingly. I firmly believe that Solar PV has a very important role to play in the future of renewable energy and cutting carbon emissions, as well as in the growth of BritishEco and the renewable energy industry.”
Enq. 101
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