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CARBON AND ENERGY SAVING


A staged approach to meet carbon reduction targets


With the UK currently not ‘on track’ to achieve the fourth or fifth carbon reduction targets introduced under the Climate Change Act, Stephen Lowndes, Technical director at the Carbon & Energy Fund, argues that there is a strong case ‘for a strategic investment in the fundamentals of a futureproofed energy infrastructure that can be started now, maintains savings throughout its life, and is ultimately adaptable and capable of taking advantage of future technologies as they come on stream’.


The UK Government has been aligning itself to a series of carbon budgets introduced under the 2008 Climate Change Act. Each provides a five-year statutory cap on total greenhouse gas emissions, which, when taken together, define a path toward Britain’s long-term climate objective. We are currently in the third carbon budget, which has a target to cut emissions to 37% by 2020 relative to 1990. The fourth budget sees this target expanded to 51% by 2025, and the fifth to 57% by 2030. At the moment the UK is not on track to achieve the fourth or fifth budget targets. Notwithstanding this, the UK Government has recently increased its ambition to set the 2050 long-term objective to net zero emissions. The NHS has been monitoring its emissions for some years, albeit that they have not always been in alignment with the UK carbon budgets or baselines. The NHS Long Term Plan,2


published in


January 2019, identified the goal of reducing the NHS carbon footprint by a third from 2007 levels by 2020, and aligning with the UK Government Climate Change Act carbon budgets – citing the challenge to achieve 51% by 2025.


An expert panel


Sir Simon Stevens has announced that the NHS is establishing an expert panel to chart a practical route map to enable the NHS to reach ‘net zero’, becoming the world’s first major health service to do so. The panel is due to submit an interim report in the Autumn, ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) originally planned for November this year, but now postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19.


Given the extent of reduction in emissions required in the next three decades, there will need to be a move away from using fossil fuels for most activities, such as electricity generation, heating, and transport. The challenge is huge, and will not be achieved in a single step. Despite this, there are already now some NHS Trusts that have declared a


‘Climate Emergency’, and have targeted aspirations to achieve net zero positions much earlier than 2050, with Cornwall and Isles of Scilly STP the first region in the NHS to target net zero emissions by 2030.


Drivers that govern emissions Electricity, gas, and oil consumption are usually by far the largest contributors to a healthcare facility’s carbon footprint, although there are still other important contributors from waste and transport, and clinical activities such as dialysis for kidney patients, and anaesthetic gas use in operating theatres.


Carbon emissions from buildings and associated infrastructure are led by primary energy consumption, which in turn is influenced by type of fuel utilisation, plant age and efficiency (including HVAC and lighting), building usage, occupancy patterns, fabric condition, and levels of thermal insulation.


Decarbonising utilities


The UK has managed to decarbonise the electricity national grid significantly in the last five years. In fact, 75% of all UK carbon emission reduction since 2012


has come from the power sector. This decarbonisation is anticipated to increase with more renewables, increased localised levels of grid power management and storage, and, ultimately, the potential future incorporation of carbon capture and storage technology on retained fossil fuel generation.


This investment has come at a cost, with non-domestic electricity consumer tariffs encompassing significant premiums over and above the basic commodity price, that have subsidised the ‘greening of the grid’, as well as historically higher levels of climate change levy tax paid for each kWh of electricity used.


Meanwhile, to date here has been negligible decarbonisation of natural gas – the most common fuel used in the NHS for space heating and domestic hot water generation. National Grid is currently at the start of a 10-year Gas Market Plan for decarbonisation, which is looking at, among other issues, the potential for hydrogen utilisation in the gas grid. Wholesale changes to decarbonise natural gas and attempt to move in the long term towards hydrogen as a ‘drop in’ replacement at scale would be costly, and


June 2020 Health Estate Journal 41


©Aris Suwanmalee/stock.adobe.com


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