>The task of sheltering households and businesses from eye-watering energy bills has fallen initially to the government. A price-guarantee scheme ensures that the average British household will pay no more than £3,000 ($3,600) a year for its energy until April 2024. But cushioning the blow of bigger bills will cost taxpayers a lot (some £40bn, on latest estimates) while weakening the incentive for households to reduce consumption. The government is belatedly signalling that this needs to change; on November 23rd Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, described saving energy as a “national mission”.
>Some savings can come from changes in behaviour. The government has finally approved an information campaign that will doubtless remind Britons that showers are more energy-efficient than baths, that draught excluders do what they say and that electrical appliances don’t have to be left on standby for eternity. Turning things down or off only gets you so far, however. The problem is not just people, but also the buildings they live in.
>Britain’s 30m dwellings are among the least energy-efficient in Europe. The stock is old and often decrepit. One-third of homes were built before 1945 and their construction paid no heed to efficiency. Although the stock has improved, progress has been patchy. Schemes to encourage insulation have come and gone; the number of homes being insulated fell sharply in the mid-2010s after David Cameron’s government cut funding.
>Attitudes are shifting again. Energy efficiency forms a pillar of Britain’s legally binding mandate to reach net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. Housing accounts for around one-third of the country’s energy needs and about one-fifth of its emissions. The Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent body scrutinising the government’s climate policies, says that household energy use must fall by 30% to help halve building emissions by 2035. The war in Ukraine has now injected greater urgency into the task of reducing demand.
>A building’s energy efficiency is commonly assessed with an energy-performance certificate (EPC). Every home in Britain requires an EPC when it is built, or marketed for sale or rent. A brief physical inspection by a certified assessor determines the home’s energy use. Thermal efficiency is estimated from the building’s age and construction material, as well as from visible signs of retrofitting such as insulation and double-glazed windows.
>The headline figure from an EPC is a measure of a home’s total cost of energy use per square metre of floor space, indexed from 1 to 100 and divided into ratings from A (the least costly homes) to G (the most expensive). The government has said that it wants every dwelling in Britain to achieve at least an EPC rating of C—a score of at least 69—by 2035. That means fixing 13m properties in England that do not currently meet the standard.
>An analysis by The Economist finds that thermal efficiency tends to correlate with income. Among England’s 15m owner-occupied homes the poorest decile of households consume 30% more energy to heat each square metre of floor space than the richest decile. A similar pattern is observable among the 5m tenants renting from private-sector landlords. The government has suggested that all newly let properties will need an EPC of C or above by 2030, but landlords may sell them rather than incur the costs of refurbishment.
>According to the latest government assessment, published in July, it will cost around £130bn at today’s prices for all homes to have an EPC of C. The financial case for making homes more energy-efficient has become a lot more compelling. The average retrofit cost is £10,000. At October’s prices the resulting energy savings would reduce average bills by £650-1,000 each year, implying a payback period of ten to 15 years. The financial system could also sharpen incentives to act. Banks may soon be required to report the EPC ratings of their mortgage book; they may decide to lend at higher interest rates on the draughtiest homes.
>The ability of households to fund the upfront costs of insulating lofts and cavity walls varies substantially, however. On November 28th the government announced an expanded £1bn scheme for insulation grants, bringing total government funding to £7.6bn. More help is likely to be needed to support less affluent households. The government supported 150,000 retrofits in 2021, but to meet the EPC C target the number of houses being upgraded needs to hit 500,000 a year by 2025 and 1m by 2030, according to the CCC.
>Money is not the only problem; finding enough people to do the work is another. By one estimate as many as 500,000 skilled tradespeople are needed to meet Britain’s insulation goals. Brexit, among other things, has caused the number of construction workers to fall since 2019. Russell Smith of Parity Projects, an energy consultancy, wants the government to improve training and introduce something for retrofits akin to the “Kitemark” certification to “kick out the cowboys”.
>Britain cannot reach net-zero emissions or reduce its vulnerability to soaring gas prices with decent insulation alone. Among other things, it must also decarbonise the electricity grid and replace gas boilers with electric heat pumps. The government says it wants to take a “fabric-first” approach to housing: insulating properties before replacing the heating system. That task has been made easier by rising prices; households have much more reason to embrace energy efficiency than they did. If only more progress had already been made.
Good. It’s a no brainer. It pays for itself in 10-15 years.
I got triple glazing recently, mainly for noise, the company were insistent I should have trickle vents.
What’s the point in having extra insulated windows if you then drill big holes in the frame?
Cheap draught sealing might save a bit on energy but it will lead to more damp and mould problems, you aren’t going to make an old house fit for the 21st century for a grand or two, they need a proper plan.
I’m gonna guess a lot of Tories are suddenly going to have draughty homes that need some of that fixing up money, or will suddenly have some stake in companies that will be doing it…
4 comments
>The task of sheltering households and businesses from eye-watering energy bills has fallen initially to the government. A price-guarantee scheme ensures that the average British household will pay no more than £3,000 ($3,600) a year for its energy until April 2024. But cushioning the blow of bigger bills will cost taxpayers a lot (some £40bn, on latest estimates) while weakening the incentive for households to reduce consumption. The government is belatedly signalling that this needs to change; on November 23rd Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, described saving energy as a “national mission”.
>Some savings can come from changes in behaviour. The government has finally approved an information campaign that will doubtless remind Britons that showers are more energy-efficient than baths, that draught excluders do what they say and that electrical appliances don’t have to be left on standby for eternity. Turning things down or off only gets you so far, however. The problem is not just people, but also the buildings they live in.
>Britain’s 30m dwellings are among the least energy-efficient in Europe. The stock is old and often decrepit. One-third of homes were built before 1945 and their construction paid no heed to efficiency. Although the stock has improved, progress has been patchy. Schemes to encourage insulation have come and gone; the number of homes being insulated fell sharply in the mid-2010s after David Cameron’s government cut funding.
>Attitudes are shifting again. Energy efficiency forms a pillar of Britain’s legally binding mandate to reach net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. Housing accounts for around one-third of the country’s energy needs and about one-fifth of its emissions. The Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent body scrutinising the government’s climate policies, says that household energy use must fall by 30% to help halve building emissions by 2035. The war in Ukraine has now injected greater urgency into the task of reducing demand.
>A building’s energy efficiency is commonly assessed with an energy-performance certificate (EPC). Every home in Britain requires an EPC when it is built, or marketed for sale or rent. A brief physical inspection by a certified assessor determines the home’s energy use. Thermal efficiency is estimated from the building’s age and construction material, as well as from visible signs of retrofitting such as insulation and double-glazed windows.
>The headline figure from an EPC is a measure of a home’s total cost of energy use per square metre of floor space, indexed from 1 to 100 and divided into ratings from A (the least costly homes) to G (the most expensive). The government has said that it wants every dwelling in Britain to achieve at least an EPC rating of C—a score of at least 69—by 2035. That means fixing 13m properties in England that do not currently meet the standard.
>An analysis by The Economist finds that thermal efficiency tends to correlate with income. Among England’s 15m owner-occupied homes the poorest decile of households consume 30% more energy to heat each square metre of floor space than the richest decile. A similar pattern is observable among the 5m tenants renting from private-sector landlords. The government has suggested that all newly let properties will need an EPC of C or above by 2030, but landlords may sell them rather than incur the costs of refurbishment.
>According to the latest government assessment, published in July, it will cost around £130bn at today’s prices for all homes to have an EPC of C. The financial case for making homes more energy-efficient has become a lot more compelling. The average retrofit cost is £10,000. At October’s prices the resulting energy savings would reduce average bills by £650-1,000 each year, implying a payback period of ten to 15 years. The financial system could also sharpen incentives to act. Banks may soon be required to report the EPC ratings of their mortgage book; they may decide to lend at higher interest rates on the draughtiest homes.
>The ability of households to fund the upfront costs of insulating lofts and cavity walls varies substantially, however. On November 28th the government announced an expanded £1bn scheme for insulation grants, bringing total government funding to £7.6bn. More help is likely to be needed to support less affluent households. The government supported 150,000 retrofits in 2021, but to meet the EPC C target the number of houses being upgraded needs to hit 500,000 a year by 2025 and 1m by 2030, according to the CCC.
>Money is not the only problem; finding enough people to do the work is another. By one estimate as many as 500,000 skilled tradespeople are needed to meet Britain’s insulation goals. Brexit, among other things, has caused the number of construction workers to fall since 2019. Russell Smith of Parity Projects, an energy consultancy, wants the government to improve training and introduce something for retrofits akin to the “Kitemark” certification to “kick out the cowboys”.
>Britain cannot reach net-zero emissions or reduce its vulnerability to soaring gas prices with decent insulation alone. Among other things, it must also decarbonise the electricity grid and replace gas boilers with electric heat pumps. The government says it wants to take a “fabric-first” approach to housing: insulating properties before replacing the heating system. That task has been made easier by rising prices; households have much more reason to embrace energy efficiency than they did. If only more progress had already been made.
Good. It’s a no brainer. It pays for itself in 10-15 years.
I got triple glazing recently, mainly for noise, the company were insistent I should have trickle vents.
What’s the point in having extra insulated windows if you then drill big holes in the frame?
Cheap draught sealing might save a bit on energy but it will lead to more damp and mould problems, you aren’t going to make an old house fit for the 21st century for a grand or two, they need a proper plan.
I’m gonna guess a lot of Tories are suddenly going to have draughty homes that need some of that fixing up money, or will suddenly have some stake in companies that will be doing it…