ROOF Blog

The Government has set out new plans to make Britain’s homes ‘greener, warmer and cheaper to run’. The strategy is aimed at cutting emissions from the UK’s homes by 29% by 2020. It will help people make smarter use of energy in homes, making it easier to take action and reduce bills. Installing some technologies, such as solid wall insulation, could see energy bills cut by £380 a year. The strategy will be implemented in a three stage plan: to insulate 6 million homes by the end of 2011; to have insulated all practical lofts and cavity walls by 2015; to have offered up to 7 million eco upgrades by 2020.

Roof-mounted wind turbines and solar panels are ‘eco-bling’ that allow their owners to flaunt their green credentials but contribute very little towards meeting Britain’s carbon reduction targets, according to the Royal Academy of Engineering. Developers will waste millions of pounds installing such micro-generation devices unless the Government revises its building regulations on carbon-neutral homes and offices. Doug King, professor of building engineering at the University of Bath and the author of a report on low carbon buildings, said that far greater savings could be made by installing better insulation and methods of trapping the sun’s rays. He proposed that the government target for all new homes to be carbon-neutral by 2016 should be relaxed in return for developers making equivalent contributions to wind farms and other large-scale renewable energy projects.

With demand for gas rising sharply, Britain’s gas reserves are running low, meaning the country is more reliant on imported gas bought on the international market. Imported energy is more expensive, and rising demand across Europe this week caused natural gas prices to jump to their highest level in 10 months. That triggered warnings from energy analysts that power companies may use the cold snap as justification for another increase in domestic bills. Tom Foulkes, director general of the Institution of Civil Engineers said: ‘To avoid energy crises and price hikes in the future the UK energy sector must urgently build extra gas storage capacity into the network. We simply cannot continue to rely on unpredictable overseas supplies’.

Housing and Planning Minister John Healey has proposed a more consumer-friendly green rating for homes that will promote energy efficient properties and reduce future utility bills by up to £1500 a year in the most energy efficient homes. The Code for Sustainable Homes was ratified in April 2007 as a standard to measure improvement in the overall sustainability of new homes. Mr Healey is proposing changes in the Code to make it easier for consumers, whether they are developers or individuals simply wanting to grade and track the sustainability of their properties. Mr Healey said: ‘Our homes account for a quarter of UK carbon emissions, so it’s clear they are a vital part of our efforts to tackle climate change. The Code has proved its worth but now is the time to make it a more user-friendly standard for consumers. In the future, this will help drive uptake so people will save more money on bills and reduce the carbon footprint of new homes.’

People who generate electricity from home wind turbines and solar panels will not have to pay tax on the money they make by selling it to the national grid, the Chancellor announced in the pre-Budget report.

From April 2010, the £900 a year they typically make from electricity sales to the grid under so-called ‘feed-in tariffs’ will be tax-free. This will save a basic-rate taxpayer £180 a year and a higher-rate taxpayer £360 a year.

The government also announced that it would take steps to encourage poor households to generate their own electricity.

Although home generation equipment often pays for itself over its lifetime, the Treasury said, the initial costs can discourage low-income families from installing it.

The government has unveiled its vision of hi-tech homes with ‘smart’ meters acting as a cornerstone of a more efficient, greener electricity grid system.

British Gas and other power suppliers have been given responsibility for installing meters in each of Britain’s 26m homes by 2020, enabling them to read consumption levels remotely and end the use of estimated bills.

The gadgets would also allow homeowners to monitor their own gas and electricity usage – and production if they have solar panels or wind turbines.

However, a row over the £8.5bn outlay for smart meters threatened to overshadow the announcement with critics warning that the energy companies might pocket the benefits.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said the cost of the scheme would be dwarfed by the £14.5bn of expected savings as power companies reduce administrative costs and consumers benefit from lower bills.

The number of households in fuel poverty, where at least 10 per cent of income is spent on gas and electricity, rose by 15 per cent to four million in 2007, statistics from the Department for Energy and Climate Change show. A projection for this year suggests there are 6.6 million British homes in fuel poverty, almost treble the number five years ago. Campaigners said ministers would miss their target of removing all households containing the elderly, disabled and poor from fuel poverty by next year. The biggest factor in the increase is the doubling of energy prices since 2002. Responding to these figures, the government announced a four-step plan to help the fuel poor, including forcing suppliers to increase insulation, funding energy efficiency makeovers for 90,000 homes, making social tariffs compulsory and toughening regulation to combat ‘market abuse’.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband is to announce new legislation to meet UK targets on energy emissions. The biggest investment is expected to be in renewable energy –  wind farms and nuclear power stations –  but energy companies will pass on the cost which is estimated to add £230 to household energy bills.

Meanwhile, Scotland would be 100 per cent renewable in the 20 years, according to a report The power of Scotland renewed. Renewable energy could meet between 60 and 143 per cent of Scotland’s annual electricity demand by 2030 by investing in grid upgrades, interconnections and electricity storage, the report says.

The number of people over 65 filing for bankruptcy has almost tripled in the last five years, figures from the Insolvency Service suggests. The firm believes the increase is down to more people entering retirement with unpaid debts, and also blamed rising food and energy prices. During the same period the total number of bankruptcies for the entire population rose 89 per cent.