It was just around 2 weeks before he stepped down as prime minister that Gordon Brown on live TV raised the mood of the solar heating industry by declaring a preference for solar water heating over wind power for his own home in Scotland. However, this cheer was short-lived when, 3 days later, Which? Consumer launched a damming report on the same industry for extensively misleading consumers after an undercover sting investigation. According to the report, not one company in the fourteen identified all the important technical challenges before issuing a quotation for solar heating. Five of them didn’t even bother to survey the domestic hot water (DHW) appliances inside of the property; a practice the article indicated was ‘doomed to failure’. Whilst we wonder if Gordon Brown himself has ended up with an appropriate heating system, we should spare a thought for the vulnerable in our society who are being enticed by government subsidy schemes unnervingly close to the unwelcome side of the industry that uses such a poorly-trained technical sales force.

Solar thermal system on the shower block at Home Farm

It was back in 2006 that the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) was first envisaged to deal with the industry cowboys accessing public funds. Yet the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) received around 1,000 complaints about the solar heating sector last year, well in excess of other similar sized trades. Clearly, the MCS scheme has yet to have had the intended knock-on effect that protects enough consumers and it will continue to fail whilst it attracts so few industry entrants.

Let’s face it: even an MCS-registered installer company is going to find it tough keeping up with the formal guidelines. In the last month we’ve seen a raft of new government-based guidance that affects renewables. Some of these appear with little warning and so small chance for the established training courses to modify their teaching materials. Once on the MCS list, there is little to force a company to briskly update their practices even if suitable training courses do become available.

A good example is with the new issue of SAP 2010 software which obliges a would-be MCS solar installer to present the customer with a calculation that involves an exponential and a natural logarithm. That requires an understanding equal to A-level mathematics in ‘old money’, and no guarantee that an installer will even get the calculation correct. Even if they did, unless the customer lives in Sheffield, has an average lifestyle and uses all their DHW through solar-compatible appliances then that calculation will be fundamentally flawed in any case. It takes skill and a detailed internal site survey to accurately estimate heating and electrical loads in existing buildings. All these will be essential for accurate feed-in tariff and heat incentive predictions. The analysis of these with any realistic financial forecasting is going to need computers, specialised software and a knowledge that goes well beyond jointing pipes and cable together. The current MCS requirements do not sufficiently test for these abilities and it is no wonder that consumer complaints are rife.

Thankfully, the newly revised Domestic Services Compliance Guide from DCLG maintains some common sense with reasonable minimum requirements for those lucky enough to be offered a solar system that comes with a heat exchanger. Not so fortunate are those without a solar heat exchanger, which now have extra safety issues to consider under the new Approved Document G for Sanitation, hot water safety and efficiency in England and Wales. Greater attention to scalding risks is now necessary for all, especially when running baths.

MCS registered solar installer

Despite the aforementioned UK obstacles, solar thermal is destined to provide 25% of total heat demand in Europe by 2050 according to the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC). Their downloadable report ‘A 100% Renewable Energy Vision…’ gives a clear vision for displacing all non-renewables. In the case of solar thermal, that implies solar will be significantly assisting with space heating and cooling. If the UK is going to reach that level of contribution, the newborn of today will be managing those installing companies in 40 years’ time. They will rightfully expect a set of clear educational  career pathways to achieve those targets. They will also expect role models, which appear rather thin on the ground at present.

During the summer, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) released an unusually-titled 155 page study called ‘The UK Supply Curve for Renewable Heat’. The purpose of the study was to reveal how much renewable heat could be achievable under different scenarios and at what cost. Its intention was to form a basis for the forthcoming Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI) which will support such technologies. Inside these pages was some bad news for the solar heating industry, as this technology was scored at the highest cost over other heat renewables such as heat pumps, biomass and biogas. The scenario used in calculating the cost assumed that by 2020 around 10% of the UK’s future heat will come from renewables. It also assumed taxpayer’s support of at least £2bn/year through subsidies.

Solar thermal collector - evacuated tubes

The reason solar heating did so badly in the analysis initially caused some head scratching. A mysterious ‘load factor’ was used as part of the calculations, which had historically been used to analyse wind farms to indicate their actual energy production in relation to the theoretical possible if they turned every hour of the year. The answer in this case is about 25% but for solar heating it was shown as low as 5%. This needed pause for thought because, unlike wind, the likes of pre-heating domestic hot water (DHW) only works sensibly by storing up the heat during the day which can then be used at will. Most other forms of heat production can get away without storage for peak loads.

This method of analysis meant that biomass was always going to be a winner as it can easily peak enough heat to keep up with any building requirements day or night in any season. Solar, however, is always limited to delivering around 0.5 kW per square metre of roof at midday and that’s not enough to keep up with even a modest shower which needs around 8 kW. Of course, if you store solar heat up over a summer day you’ll have plenty of showers, but that was not counted when using load factors. So at a value exceeding £150/MWh, solar heating didn’t even make it on to some of the ‘curves’ in the study because it was too expensive. This was especially emphasised when some technologies like biomass actually scored far better with a negative cost.

With a bit of further prodding, DECC statisticians finally accepted that comparing wind to solar load factors was not a sensible idea. Indeed, where referring to stored heat the load factor will not provide any useful information and instead results such as system efficiency would be more useful. What a pity the study’s authors hadn’t checked this before publication. That said, this on its own would not have saved solar heating from occupying the more expensive end of renewable heating. The unfortunate fact is that just heating half your hot water from the sun is small beans compared to the energy needed to space heat an older house. Heat pumps and biomass on the other hand can provide all the required energy and therefore scored better.

A further twist in the government’s convoluted support for renewables came recently, also through DECC, this time via the much-maligned Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS).  This has brought back to the fore a long-smouldering conflict with the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). Both departments are seeking to regulate heating equipment in buildings but with slightly different remits. The MCS, for example, aims for a “substantial contribution to cutting the UK’s dependency on fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions”; whereas DCLG aims for “Reasonable provision […] for the conservation of fuel and power in dwellings by limiting the heat loss from hot water pipes […] for space heating, from hot water vessels and providing space heating and hot water systems which are energy-efficient” through the building regulations.

Inevitably when two departments’ aims are close as this they are going to tread on each other’s toes. By rights, DCLG got there first with the publication of the Domestic Heating Compliance Guide in April 2006, which covered some of the basic renewable heat technologies including solar, heat pumps and wood fuel. The MCS scheme was slower off the mark, with the first drafts of its documents covering the same topics coming out in 2007. An uneasy truce lay between the departments until recently when the MCS scheme published a new document version for solar water heating. This declared that certain methods of storing heat that were not automatically deemed to comply with the building regulations by DCLG were now all-of-a-sudden permitted under the MCS scheme. Unbelievably, the MCS scheme had not obtained prior written agreement from DCLG on this variance, hence leaving installers caught between a rock and a hard place. No joined-up government thinking here!

Thermostat controlled radiator

The general technical matter raised is indeed a controversial one. Vested commercial interests have been arguing around the point to allow a householder’s interaction with heating equipment, such as altering thermostats or timers, to be counted as equal for energy savings compared to if they had fitted, say, a gas condensing boiler or dedicated storage volume for solar heating. Of course, any householder can already get a reward for playing with their heating timer and thermostat. It will give them a reduction on their fuel bill. Indeed, this is the cheapest way for anyone to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions; a fact notably omitted from the aforementioned DECC Supply Curves study. So perhaps this reveals that the government is now changing its strategy and will give up on expensive renewable technological solutions?

Instead I can only presume it intends to fund us all to limit ourselves to one bath or shower a week and otherwise wear woolly jumpers whilst in our homes. This way, the government gets to look like it is doing something about climate change and we get more money in our pockets.  I just wonder if it couldn’t achieve those aims by a levy on fuel bills rather than complex renewable subsidy schemes that can only be accessed by those already wealthy and knowledgeable enough to do so.

Whatever happened to that barbeque summer we were promised? The BBC’s weather department have apologised recently for their misleading forcasts by telling us that weather is ‘unpredictable’. These small ironies aside, if you too have already taken the plunge with solar water heating you may be wondering where the promised lashings of hot water have gone. It’s natural to blame the weather, but part of the problem also lies with the excessive expectation generated from parts of the UK solar industry.

Rain on a solar collector at the Centre for Alternative Technology in mid-Wales

My own solar DHW system, albeit a fairly large one, has so far got me through 100% of the summer without needing any back-up heat or delivering scalding temperatures on those rare times the sun came out.  There is no secret: I simply have a large, very well-insulated hot water store with a generous collector area-to-person ratio with a temperature control to switch the pump off thermostatically, just like you’d find on countless houses in Northern Europe.

Two unfortunate UK trends are coming to the fore in the rush to sell solar to building developers. First, the mistaken belief that if one solar collector gives you x Kilowatt Hours of hot water thenadding an extra collector will give you twice that figure. That’s plain wrong and considerably overstates the energy gain. In fact, given a fixed hot water demand and insufficient storage, every extra collector you add will give you proportionally less. The answer to how much energy you’ll really get comes out of a complex dynamic calculation with over 50 variables.

Image courtesy of Viessman Ltd.

Secondly, the mistaken use of undersized storage to save space is  rife in the prospective new-build market. Keen to undersell their competitors and squeeze into smaller footprints, UK hot water cylinder suppliers are managing to shed ever greater centimetres of height and diameter whilst still promising compliance to building minimums required by regulations. Unfortunately the laws of physics don’t budge so easily. If there is nowhere to store the heat, the outcome is poor performance and low reliability.  It’s a sad indicator that established solar installers are as likely to be busy repairing existing systems as putting up new ones.

The scenario of new housing estates with each house displaying a failed solar system does little to displace carbon dioxide and indeed makes climate change worse, assuming the wasted embodied energy of construction.

The legal structures are in place to prevent this situation enduring but enforcement is currently weak and technical misunderstandings perpetrated by those who market themselves as cheap and cheerful.  It doesn’t take much to confuse the uninitiated on the subtle differences between dedicated, effective and total solar storage volumes, and when these terms are confused the loss of solar easily exceeds the effort of doing it in the first place.

When the government loses its way on a particular policy you can bet there will be a cabinet shuffle resulting in a new department. And with the recent debacle around the certification of small-scale renewables it comes as no surprise to see the new formation of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) intending to take over DEFRA and BERR covering their related subject areas. After all, there’s nothing like a bit of desk-moving to make an office look busy.

Sitting rather proudly with its own special governmental position, nuclear gets the Office for Nuclear Development (OND) making it clear that new nuclear generators will be the core energy feature of coming decades despite placing continuing dependency on the goodwill of far-away Uranium rich countries – rather like oil and gas. Nevertheless, it’s no wonder the electrical heating appliance manufactures are looking positively buoyant at present and indeed can hardly make enough heat pumps to keep up with current demand.

I do wonder if the cabinet shuffle missed a trick when it could have brought some of the overlapping health issues into closer league with climate and energy. As anyone involved with domestic water heating/cooling design will know, the whole point of throwing water and energy together is ultimately to maintain health, whether for hygiene, sustenance or comfort. This lack of foresight is exactly why, for example, the code for sustainable homes (CSH) runs itself into trouble with minimisation of water and energy because it seems to forget that ordinary human beings will finally occupy them. The history of house building shows that if homes can’t be modified, they become ghettos. Will we be observing sheepish CSH Level 6 home owners popping down the road to visit their less regulated friends in their Victorian refurbishment just to enjoy a deep bath, I wonder?

Indeed, CSH Level 6 new home owners may well be busy appliance consumers at several levels, perhaps hoping to improve their solar hot water contribution by swapping their ubiquitous single cold-fill washing machines for rarer dual-fill, let alone those wanting to wash cars and sit in jacuzzis. On the other hand, if the government’s favoured nuclear ‘zero’-carbon contribution does start to cut in by 2016, will our CSH High Level electrical appliance manufactures lobby hard enough by then to get off-site-produced nuclear electricity included?

The recent Environment Agency report on carbon emission of water supply confirms that the carbon content of water used currently in homes far outweighs that used in sourcing, distribution and treatment.  Within this, the key carbon emitter is domestic hot water whereas plain cold water use creates far less. Taking account of correlated studies elsewhere, it is clear that in general 90% of carbon emissions related to water production relates to that used in the home. And the more we insulate their exteriors, the more significant DHW carbon will be.

Another report for the Energy Savings Trust this year indicated that combi-boiler users tend to draw water at the kitchen sink in greater quantities but at lower temperatures against regular boiler use with DHW storage cylinders. As we already know, combi boilers do not often sit comfortably with pre-heating from renewables so here’s  another conundrum for CSH – whether to favour low water use or low energy appliances?

This is exactly the point where we might expect a potentially health-aware DECC to be taking far more interest in domestic hot water (DHW) and bring in some cohesion. After all, it’s one thing to attempt to constrain the lifestyle of new house owners at the point of home purchase, but it’s quite another to stop them unravelling all the good intentions according to personal wishes. Take this scenario as an example: a high level CSH that comes with a low flow-rate shower head. The new owners happen to want different, so they engage a plumber to swap shower heads only to be told the entombed pipe sizes are so small that a booster pump is needed to increase water pressure. Not only this, but now the hot water storage is found too small to enjoy the higher rate shower so this has to be increased in size as well. If this is a likely scenario, I would suggest CSH would have failed in its aims.

I remain sceptical about the government’s vision of a two-tier Britain – those elite few in new CSH Level 6 versus the majority in older houses. Surely we need realistic incentives for all housing both new and old. Such incentives really need to be far more intuitive than the complex Code for Sustainable Homes so that the greater part of the public can relate and sympathise with the objectives.

My vote goes for vastly improving demand management – in essence digital metering of water, electricity and heat across all housing stock and for each dwelling. Nothing else will send the hoards out faster to buy their low flow shower heads and solar heating than seeing their bank balance dwindle on a real-time digital screen as they step out of the shower. If we can already get real-time monitoring for the likes of mobiles phones and luxury cars, is it not a small step to do so for the essentials of life?

Baxi 20kW boiler

It’s been a rough economic ride for many in recent months. And yet in these times of doom and gloom I’d like to call for a big round of applause for our hard-working loan providers. If it weren’t for their excessive greed and risk-taking with other people’s money, we‘d never have had the economic turmoil which has spurred the whole world on to burn less fossil fuels. After decades of failed carbon dioxide reduction politics, it’s taken just a matter of weeks to see the price of oil plummet and production accordingly decrease. After all, there’s no better solution for reducing emissions from fossil fuel than leaving it in the ground.

Attaching such a positive spin to economic decline remains one of the classic ‘third rail’ subjects (the third rail being the one you don’t go near or touch for fear of death by electrocution). You don’t see many politicians seeking re-election by promoting negative economic growth. And yet the carbon mitigation of reduced use of cement, steel and air travel are what the lungs of the plant most need right now.

It has therefore been timely that the Cambridge Physics Professor, David MacKay has released his book ‘Sustainable Energy — without the hot air’. Engineers and scientists all over the world will no doubt celebrate the presentation of a balance sheet that puts our energy dilemma in clear terms. Current industrialized consumption rates of over 100 kWh/day/person are not going to come from known renewable sources based in those countries, even if every public planning enquiry into wind turbines and tidal barrage were to be waved through tomorrow. And if we attempt to bring every other country up to the same consumption, the imbalance worsens. MacKay doesn’t argue against renewable energy, but he does make it clear that the figures don’t add up.

Buying renewable energy products for our homes without engaging consumption reduction has the added risk of breeding complacency.

A grant-funded roof covered in PV modules sitting under a grey UK sky is still paying its embodied energy deficient off and provides no excuse for avoiding insulation.

Talking of insulation, the ‘Warmfront’ government initiative to tackle fuel poverty such as with cavity wall insulation has been identified as problematic in a recent report by the National Audit Office. Speaking to a specialist contractor, I enquired what he meant by cavity wall ‘extraction’. It then appeared he had a viable business from removing failed grant-funded cavity wall insulation: i.e. those drenched by water ingress. Not only that, he noted that a considerable number of houses previously visited by grant-funded blown-in cavity-wall installers did not appear to have received any notable levels of insulation material. It seems the grant administrator was cost–cutting by not using sufficient or technically-adept inspectors who would be able to tell the difference. The much maligned Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) flagship for grant-funded renewables is also not going to fund inspectors to physically inspect the most important bit of the solar systems: the solar collector on the roof. Will an office-based inspection be sufficient with such doubts about contractors’ integrity?

This same cycle of taxpayers’ grant-funding energy measures followed by insufficient quality control appears endemic. Side-stepping has already begun around the much vaunted feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable heat. At first glance, this would suggest that the price to be paid per kWh will be given according to a meter that usefully measures the displaced quantity of fossil fuel. Sadly, only generated energy is likely to be counted and, worse still for smaller systems, either self-reporting or a deemed amount may be assumed without the need for a meter.  Indeed this amount may well be paid up-front before generation has even been verified. Which is another way of saying the so called ‘tariff’ has become a capital grant with no technical inspection at all.

Consider the above when we hear ominous talk of exporting heat from buildings. An example would be ground source heat-pumps working in reverse mode and ‘storing’ excess summer heat into the ground until winter (a.k.a. air conditioning). The assumption that summer heat in a house has only come from the sun is almost certainly erroneous. In fact there will be an indistinguishable mix of heat sources from waste electric heat of standby devices, computers and cooking. So how will ‘deeming’ correctly calculate this scenario?

During my days as an on-site advisor to businesses in Liverpool, the depressing sight of air conditioning being used to cool rooms whilst the windows were open and radiators blazing heat in the summer was all too common. No-one who worked there knew how to control their equipment and an absentee head office paid the bills knowing no better. I’m sure the increasing requirements to show Display Energy Certificates (DECs) will help reduce such scenarios, but will there enough double-checking to avoid the dreaded drive-by inspections that seem rife in other sectors?

Leaving aside that the common interest of successfully reducing carbon dioxide should be enough; there is nothing that policy-makers, manufacturers or installers dislike as more than independent inspection that really measures the success of what they have done.  I am reminded of this well-known quote:

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. Richard Feynman

In times when many energy publications appear lightweight and ethereal, there remains a bastion that somehow reassures us. The Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) and its parent the Building Research Establishment’s Domestic Energy Model (BREDEM) have both given a sense of substance to the housing industry that has lasted for decades.

Ecologically designed housing estate, Germany

In the face of emerging passive-heated housing, the government has restated the intended trajectory for SAP with a new consultation sequence starting this year, then 2012, and again in 2015. The experiences of very low energy buildings are clearly in SAP’s sights. Those advocating the PassivHaus Planning Package (PHPP) will be left wondering whether to assist in the development of SAP or instead to ‘put it to bed’. What must be clear in the government’s minds is that the vast majority of us will still be living in leaky sieves for years to come, and we still need a software model to deal with incremental improvements. European legislators will no doubt be frustrated at the continued separation to their parallel initiatives.

The most significant proposed change to SAP 2005 is a calculation based on monthly instead of annual figures.  This brings a welcome sensitivity to seasonal variations of performance which will improve the accuracy of accounting for many renewables. Also favourable is the increase of carbon dioxide emission factors for just about everything originating from fossils. Wood logs and chips are some of the few that have been lowered in impact and so are particular winners in this revision. Non-fossil based fuel oils for boilers also do well, in that they are now clearly itemised and include rape-seed and used-cooking oil notably distinguished from the previous anonymous ‘biomass’ sources. As the controversy between land used for food versus fuel continues, the opportunity to more fully account for carbon dioxide emissions due to displacement activity is now enabled.

Solar thermal is a substantial winner, with an increase in annual irradiation identified from the Meteorological office and another 10% improvement in its calculation after much industry lobbying. This will be added to the indirect gains that solar thermal makes from the long-overdue itemising of the difference between summer and winter boiler performance. There is now a 10% efficiency reduction during the summer use of fossil-fuel boilers, which makes it even more sensible to use solar for heating DHW when space heating is switched off. The rather clumsy single annual SEDBUK figures previously used for boiler efficiencies will no longer be used directly.

Internal and incidental heat gains are now better itemised and thermal mass is given its own calculated parameter. Space cooling is now calculated where actively fitted and the associated ground- and air-source heat pumps wait with baited breath for a clearly flagged review. Community heating is now more substantially featured throughout. The consultation closes on 12th August.

In the bath

Another important energy document soon to be revised is the Approved Document for Part G of the building regulations for England and Wales. This is expected to detail requirements of the new statutory instrument already in place that brings fresh impetus to water efficiency in new buildings. In theory, we will be assumed to be using no more than 125 litres per person per day according to a published calculation method. We don’t yet see a distinction made between cold and hot water consumption nor constraint on individual appliance design.  However, the building control inspector is far more likely to take an interest in the details of the EU Energy labels on white goods.

With all its fine intentions, chances are there will be a strong DIY after-market in high-flow taps. Either that or plumbers will discover a well-paid role in levering out plastic flow restrictors in taps! They should also be kept busy with any new baths which will be expected to be fitted with maximum temperature limitations of 48^oC. Further protection is envisaged to 80^oC for all DHW from storage vessels. Heat sources that don’t use heat exchangers are expected to need extra temperature protection.

The legislative link between water and energy is slowly synchronising. Nevertheless, the existing strategy of applying efficiency restrictions to individual appliances for energy water usage has not quite reached the same level as that for water use. Manufacturers are likely to be thinking to the replacement market as much as for the new-build.

In the recent budget, a vehicle scrapping scheme was announced under the guise of reduced exhaust emissions. It is interesting that a similar incentive to scrap old fossil fuel boilers or even old flush toilets or washing machines was not also offered. Given the wealth of new regulations on climate change, perhaps a little less stick and a bit more carrot would help us all in these lean economic times.

To call the atmosphere of a debate ‘electric’ is about as well-worn a cliché as you could hope for; but in light of current deliberations on securing a reliable future for the UK’s national grid electricity, the term has more relevance than ever.

High-profile commentators are lining up to support the rejuvenation of a nuclear future, including ex-energy ministers and even Gaia theory proponents. The Government’s Energy White Paper certainly didn’t rule out nuclear either, and all this is worrying in the extreme when the question of radioactive waste disposal and the full financial cycle of fast breeder stock have yet to run full circle.

That said, even the ‘renewable’ technologies have thus far failed to engage the full confidence of cabinet strategists, and with gas now on net import and coal mines flooded, the urgent need for a coherent solution is uppermost.  Of course, the downsizing of demand (i.e. changing our own lifestyles to include less and/or more efficient appliances) remains the most obvious but elusive solution to national policy. Few politicians will be prepared to advocate such a conceptual argument in the face of a surfeit of desirable and affordable electric gadgets designed to make life just that little bit easier.

Hence the arrival of a more voter-friendly idea – the microgeneration bill. Here cross-party proponents hope that domestic heat and power creation will become an important piece of the energy jigsaw. Designed to ease bureaucracy and increase rewards for the owners of domestic microgenerators, this bill initially progressed well through the parliamentary processes but then failed to receive full ministerial backing and now relies on a private member taking it though to the end.

Installing a small wind turbine

Here we should pause to consider what is meant by microgeneration. Certainly this term refers to devices concerned with the generation of electricity; hence we can expect small back-garden wind turbines, water turbines and photovoltaic modules to benefit from the bill. But it also means the newer, more sophisticated devices such as combined heat and power ‘boxes’ (micro CHP) which can be located in your kitchen. These, no bigger than an average washing machine, are in effect central heating boilers also capable of electrical generation (thermally-led co-generation). Theoretically, it is suggested that they could displace the UK’s entire nuclear contribution. This is a fine idea until one considers the worth of such devices in a well-insulated dwelling combined with, say, an even more benign technology such as solar water heating. Here the dwelling’s heat requirement becomes so low, particularly in summer, that incidental electricity becomes a mere token offering. In effect, the device then becomes no more beneficial than a condensing gas boiler. Furthermore, microgeneration does not tend to displace the nation’s grad base load in which nuclear and coal currently predominate. Perversely, the microgeneration bill appears to reward those who produce excess instead of those who generate just enough for themselves.

Pipes connecting solar and auxiliary heating systems

But what worries me most, given the government’s current promotion of gas condensing boilers, is who is going to be re-trained to fit and annually maintain such challenging new, predominantly gas-fired equipment? And might this not lead to a skills drain elsewhere without a more strategic training plan in place?

Despite these critical hurdles, the exchequer saw fit to reduce VAT on domestic micro CHP appliances in the last budget along with air-sourced heat pumps. The latter decision has been particularly baffling to informed observers. Indeed, already the adverts for air conditioning are now claiming they are in fact ‘safety devices’ for protection against the coming heat waves, a device not wholly removed from the cause of global warming in the first place. I’ve lost count of the number of retail businesses I have found with air conditioning used to control overheating from uncontrolled central heating, alongside windows opened by staff complaining it’s too stuffy!

The microgeneration bill seems to me worthy of support, conditional that it is further modified to improve the chances for fair exchange of heat export as much as for electricity; but that also we strategically consider the promotion of conservation of both electric and heat.

Rather than intentionally creating a ‘micro-excess’ of energy in each individual home through yet another complex generation of whirring machines, perhaps we’d be better off simply fitting an auto-off switch to every new appliance?

From the official London 2012 Olympics website

At first glance the 2012 Olympics are making all the right low-carbon noises.  As probably the largest peacetime event in the world, the event has attracted a joint initiative with the WWF in order to coin it the ‘One Planet’ Olympics. The usual plethora of glossy brochures which are currently available for download make it clear that the event’s ‘ecological limits’ will be respected.

I’ll admit, my first reaction to the success of the bid team was one of pride. On that day, just before the G8 summit and London bombs brought us back to reality, I do recall a general upsurge of optimism and the hope that we have sufficient visionaries amongst out midst capable of great things.  But I now have cause to wonder how these ‘ecological limits’ will be best served.

The glossy brochures propose a ‘distributed network of heating, cooling and power serving Olympic Park powered by mix of tri-generation (combined cooling, heat and power), locally generated and off-site renewable energy’. Apparently, by the time of the games, 20% of the Olympic Park’s electricity requirements will be met by new local renewable energy sources such as ‘advanced waste-to-energy technologies, photovoltaic panels, small scale wind turbines, bio-diesel generators and micro-co-generation for public lighting, venue, accommodation and electric vehicle power’.

My first question is, what about the other 80%? And my second: why is this bold statement so electricity focussed?

Well, the event is to be held in the summer, so initially not much space heating will be needed. But perhaps a further answer may come from the 2012 bid’s ‘Premier Partners’ which include two airlines and one of the largest energy companies in the UK. Indeed, the conglomerate-concerned EDF (Electricite de France) operates over fifty nuclear reactors quite capable of providing the 80% shortfall. To be fair it also operates significant UK offshore wind farms, but don’t forget the Olympics are planned for the summer – not so windy then! It seems obvious that, given the season, perhaps solar thermal would at least deserve a mention for the swimming pools, hotels and athletes’ showers. But spare a thought for the winter heating bills for the workers of the interim construction phases and, more importantly, the aftermath. How will this huge swage of East London construction be made useable once the gas-fired Olympic torch has been extinguished?

Perhaps we can be satisfied when the brochures promise that: ‘All  additional site energy demand will be imported from off-site renewables including wind farms and marine current turbines’. Sounds good, but I do wonder what the mysterious ‘off-site renewables’ really are, and since when has ‘waste-to-energy’ or ‘tri-generation’ technology been closely defined or even considered renewable?

Further claims are made for the athletes’ village which is said to ‘attain energy self-sufficiency’ –  this in the first winter of 2012 I’d like to see!

We should step back and view the bigger picture of this global event. Into the equation should go energy usage of the aircraft for spectators and athletes, contractors’ vehicles and off-site hospitality. Add these up and the claim for a low or zero carbon Olympics starts to look like misdirection.

What I see missing in the statements include detailed planting schedules around the UK for the trees that need to be sustainably grown for construction; how the labour skills shortage will be filled; and some sensible talk on the generation and movement of thermal heat. And spare a thought for the energy involved in displacing the established business in the area.

Let’s face it – this simply is not going to be a net carbon neutral Olympics, however much they dress it up in greenwash. It’s a power-hungry sporting event and future generations are going to have to work harder for our pleasure of it.

I wonder if the day will come when the same visionary power that brings the world together to compete could also take on the hardest and bravest task of all and bring the governments of the world to co-operate on climate change.

Over the years of working with heating and energy products I’ve often dwelt on the fact that persuasive arguments to forestall doomsday scenarios rarely seem to influence the market forces that be. So often it’s cheap capital cost and sleazy marketing claims that win the day, rather than a methodical and wise investment based on lowest impact. And so we see our best scientists continuing to raise the tone, reminding us that the sand is quickly ebbing away. One such reminder is ‘Meeting the climate challenge’, jointly published by key political bodies in UK, USA and Australia. This report was chaired by a chief UN scientific advisor and suggests that the point of no return from catastrophe is less than 10 years away, and atmospheric carbon dioxide is the indicator.

Solar collectors on a cottage roof

We should therefore be unsurprised when governments respond in our interests with tougher legislation. Hence the decision of the EU commission to issue a mandate for eco-design of energy-products (M 341), which is one that I personally welcome, despite the inevitable bureaucracy it generates. Rather than ‘red tape’, I like to think of it as ‘green tape’ – a necessary lever on the free market forces that seem so sluggish to respond.

It is estimated that over 80% of all product-related environmental impacts are determined during the product planning phase. Therefore, the most effective way to introduce changes and improvements means integrating environmental considerations as early as possible into the product development process.

A flavour of the detail of this mandate is as follows:

• Energy and water consumption throughout life cycle
• Ease for reuse and recycling
• Extension of lifetime -availability of spare parts
• Amounts of waste generated
• Emissions to air
• Emissions to water
• Pollution through noise, vibration, radiation & electromagnetic fields.

Those who may suspect a bit too much eco-wooliness here will be relived to check with the mandate text itself that confirms reference to EN & ISO harmonised standards in each technology area. Hopefully, with sufficient detail there’ll be an absence of wriggling-away from the spirit of this far-reaching policy instrument.

Fuel being delivered in Llanwddyn

Those who already work in the business of considerate energy merchandise would surely welcome clear consumer labels that benefit truly low impact products, rather than relying on mighty marketing strategies that mostly seek to mask the whole truth from the consumer. Thinking forward to how this will apply to our current choice of plumbing, boilers and fuels, I foresee quite a change to our heating in years to come. Certain government-supported and hyped technologies are likely for a heavy ride under Mandate 341. The immunity of devices that simply carry renewable energy will be lifted, despite themselves requiring intensive fossil fuel use through their lifecycle. For those appliances that ignore renewables totally, a perilous future exists.

It makes an interesting contrast between the EU and the strong non-interventionist policy for markets across the Atlantic. Here, as an example, interference in electricity tariffs to benefit renewable energy is touted as unnecessary market distortion. It’s curious logic, and yet as we stare at the atmospheric chasm ahead we reach a greater understanding of where such a lack of enlightenment will lead us.

Logging at the Forestry Commission in Wales

As I make my own purchasing and consultative decisions, toiling over the decision of what is best, I can only sympathise at the blossoming ‘on-line’ generation whose expectation of product availability seems to counter the due care necessary for ensuring minimal impact. Hence this ‘green tape’ seems a blessing without much disguise, a rational tool to guide our choices. More’s the pity that these regulations, rather than full, voluntary disclosure, have to rise surreptitiously to the surface in our consumer culture. Indeed, more than ever, it seems that green ideology and full-blown product marketing are incompatible. Does being environmentally conscious mean more than simply claiming the latest product reincarnation is ‘bio’, ‘organic’ or ‘green’?

Mandate 341, I hope, will bring coherence to a highly opinionated arena and bring shame on the heads of pretentious, greedy eco-charlatans that parade their questionable wares. Lobbying for UK interests will now need to be at a European level. Bearing in mind the scientists’ dire predictions, I wonder: if we wait so long for change, are we at the cusp of calling for far fuller eco-disclosure on products before we can assign such esteem?

The case for solar has always caught the imagination of our more creative homebuilders. Progress of the solar lobby to date can be measured by examining the Draft Part L of the Building Regulations (Conservation of Fuel and Power). Here solar heating received the most significant mention when compared to all the other low/zero carbon technologies (LZC).

Further evidence of the lobby’s progress came recently from as highup  as cabinet minister Peter Hain, who stated yesterday that ‘Every new home in Britain should by law be fitted with solar panels on the roof’.  It’s as if a small, sunny ball has now started rolling in the right direction. And let’s face it: about time too.

But perhaps we should examine these easy policy statements a little closer. There is frequent confusion about solar ‘panel’ technologies. Firstly, one generates electricity (photovoltaic or PV) and the other generates heat (solar thermal), the latter usually in the form of solar domestic hot water heating (SDHW).

Take the Secretary of State for Wales’ recent comments at the opening of a PV factory in North Wales which referred to solar ‘panels’, a term that could easily indicate either type of technology. It’s no wonder the public remain confused unless such statements are accompanied with a very clear and laboured distinction: that one type has wires and the other pipes.

So anything ‘solar’, irrespective of merit, gets another push, and in this confusion there seems to thrive a lack of scrutiny into which marketing executives jump to push their ‘100% solar’ products. This term is bandied around for PV garden lights through to whole buildings, which makes it even more disappointing when academic researchers reveal that for well over a third of the life of a framed PV module (approximately ten years) a panel will merely be playing ‘energy catch-up’ on its manufacture and distribution (i.e. its embodied energy). This compares to less than two years for SDHW in the same survey.

If we are to truly assess our environmental construction methods then we have to be rather more specific about which form of solar we take on. PV has its place, we need it badly in the future, but its absence from the forthcoming Part L draft came as no surprise to those who have added up their sums. As our global climate crisis looms ever larger there seems to be some strategic sense in saying that the best place for PV right now is on top of sunny PV factories, sunny distribution trucks and sunny container ships; in fact anywhere but overcast Europe.

So can we pin our hopes on solar DHW instead? According to the Defra Good Practice Guide 301, once the nominal 2 years’ embodied energy catch-up has been achieved, assuming readily recycled metals and glass, we can expect around 150 kg. net CO2 savings per typical UK household if  blessed with good quality, well-installed heating equipment. Add to this the CO2 benefits of upgrading old, poorly lagged hot water cylinders, normally bundled-in with good-quality SDHW systems, then we are starting to see a reasonably swift positive energy balance. But is now the time to call for mandatory SDHW on every new house?

Let’s not underestimate the task. Not only is it suggested at the highest political levels that every new house should have SDHW (implying around 165,00 new installations per year), but 25,000 additional retrofit installations are targeted in the Greater London region alone – and all this by 2010! The sobering statistic that makes this daunting is that the current UK SDHW installation rate is considered at only 5,000 per year, with far too great a proportion reported as ill-fitted or without maintenance support. There’s a skills shortage in nearly every on-tools UK construction trade skill you could name. Can we assume that the necessarily experienced candidates for roof and heating work will fund training out of their own pockets? And what are we to do with the majority of new homes that already have a major obstacle to installing renewable thermal energy; namely the gas combi boiler? For SDHW to work at its best, new houses are needed with ample-sized utility spaces necessary for the location of extra large hot water stores – which is rather the opposite of the Deputy Prime Minister’s suggestion of high-density housing.

So perhaps we’d better get a grip on that accelerating political ball and think long and hard about the infrastructure needed to actuate a mass roll-out of this multi-skilled technology. Let’s make informative, authoritative consumer labelling and substantial support of SDHW installer training a priority. The consequence otherwise is the embarrassment of empty manifesto promises and yet another melting Antarctic ice-shelf.