New green targets 'completely unrealistic'
The construction industry rejects government’s proposals for new standards for energy efficiency in new buildings
The construction industry has rejected the standards government has proposed for energy efficiency in new buildings from 2013.
In January the government set out plans to increase the carbon reduction targets for new homes by 8% and increase the target for new non-domestic buildings by 20% over 2010 levels, as part of changes to Part L of the building regulations.
The consultation on the proposals closed on Friday.
But Patrick Brown, assistant director for sustainability at the British Property Foundation, said achieving the 20% rate would likely require the use of some onsite renewable power technology, but that this was often inappropriate for city centre locations.
“We are supportive of ratcheting up of non domestic performance standards,” he added.
Peter O’Connell, policy manager at the FMB said the 8% target for new housing was also unsustainable.
“Continuing with the 2010, 2013, 2016 time table for zero carbon homes in the current economic climate is completely unrealistic ,” he said.
“The housing boom is long since over, housing boom policies must be rethought to take into account economic realities.”
He said the changes amounted to a significant new burden to the housebuilding sector when the government had promised to reduce this.
He added that the current 2010 iteration of the regulations should not be changed until a full robust assessment of their implementation had been conducted.
The UKGBC said it supported the targets. But it said the metrics for non-domestic buildings would need simplifying and that the industry would need greater clarity on how the “allowable solutions” part of the zero carbon target for housing, which would allow developers to meet their targets with offsite renewable energy, would work.
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Readers' comments (4)
As a mere mortal, I don't get the obsession with Onsite renewables which are expensive and inefficient due to their small scale.
It seems to me more sensible for developers and house builders to piggy back of major off site renewable projects than going it alone. e.g rather than building a small inefficient wind turbine in an urban location, enter into a long term green energy supply agreement with the likes of Scottish and Southern with the wind turbine located in the North Sea where the wind turbine is the most efficient technology of its class located in the in the best location available for wind, the same goes for tidal, solar, etc
The BRE need to change their position on this, we are going down a route which might look good from a PR perspective with the green bling located on site, but it is merely kicking the CO2 emissions can down the road as it cranks up the cost of development.
I installed a Daikin air source heat pump in my house which costs pennies to run, but the EPC rating was poor due to my use of grid displaced electricity. I signed up for a 5 year wind generation electricity tarriff with the electricity costing about 20% and logic and reference to my energy supply contract would confirm that my energy was wind generated but the BRE wouldn't recognise this in their SAP model.
All a bit bonkers, the industry just needs to grow up a bit and the BRE's Stanilist control of all these energy models etc questioned a bit more by government policy makers.
The 2013 targets are acheivable and the " additional cost issue" is a red herring perpetuated by those fighting change. The targets can be met economically but there does need to be a change in our approach to development. Patrick Murdoch is correct that we should centralise renewables into the infrastructure. This can also be done at a local level ( via ESCos ) for both housing and non-domestic developments. Europe and Scandinavia have been succesfully using these models for years.
SAP is a significant barrier and allowing the use of the Dynamic Simulation Models for domestic projects would overcome the SAP barrier at a stroke.
Brian Morris www.bcmconsulting.co.uk
I think your opening paragraph is completely absurd. It is simply not true to state so unequivocally that the entire construction industry rejects the standards being proposed under Part L.
Whilst there may be quibbles about one or two very specific parts, the discussions at the government's many informal, and formal, pre-consultation sessions were generally extremely positive. As I am wiling to bet will be demonstrated clearly when the results of the consultation are published by CLG.
I trust that, when that happens, you will apologise unreservedly for your quite nonsensical statement.
2013 targets are certainly achievable and if energy efficiency is 'designed in' at pre planning stage (rarely the case at present) then the cost implication is minimal.
From experience much of the gap between predictive models and in-practice performance is down to build quality and poor policing (and understanding of fairly basic building physics) by the building inspectors, on the ground. Issues surrounding thermal bridging is a good example.
So much of the performance gap is down to on-site practice (ask anyone who has built a passivhaus).
The developer/architect who deals with Part L from the start of the design process and instills good workmanship on site will not have a problem.
Replacing SAP with DSM (Lorraine above) is a great idea but there is certainly a cost implication in this as it's a much more detailed technical process. I wonder how many developers would bulk at the cost when they are so use to paying so little for SAP?