Sustainability Committee

Inquiry into Carbon Reduction in Wales: Residential Carbon Reduction

Response from West Wales ECO centre

Introduction

One of the principal organisations in the field of domestic and community sustainable energy in Wales, the ECO Centre has been working in energy efficiency, renewable energy and fuel poverty at domestic and community level for 27 years. With support from the Energy Saving Trust the ECO Centre (WWEC) operates the Energy Efficiency Advice Centres for Mid & South West Wales and North Wales. As well as providing free and impartial advice to half the households in Wales they are also proactive in promoting energy efficiency as a means of combating climate change, reducing fuel poverty and improving health. They work in partnership with local authorities across the region at strategic and tactical level through CEERW and the North Wales HECA Forum

WWEC is also actively involved in renewable energy through its renewable energy advice service. Renewable Energy forms a key part of the ECO Centre's work, with a number of flagship projects assisted over the years.

Education forms a key plank of WWEC objectives and it has run many successful environmental education projects in Pembrokeshire and beyond and worked with a wide range of bodies including Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, Countryside Council for Wales, WAG, CAT and local authorities. WWEC education projects have developed a wide range of materials and resources for use in teaching about climate change and sustainability. Its current flagship project is Climate Change Wales, putting climate change, its causes, impacts and mitigation into a Welsh context.

Question 1. Is the proposed 3% annual reduction target by 2011 'in areas of devolved competence’ sufficient to enable Wales to make its full contribution to meeting UK-wide targets? If not what targets should be put in place?

Is Wales able to act outside its area of devolved competence?

3% reduction represents Wales share of current targets. There are two considerations that policy makes should bear in mind;

1. the amount of reduction in carbon emissions required for a developed nation should reflect what it is responsible for. So a much greater reduction is required and therefore merits a stiffer target.

2. The scientific reports are continually changing, bring forward and increasing estimates of temperature rises. It could be argued that the UK targets and therefore the Welsh targets should be greater. But in the absence of any UK wide decision the Wales could take the lead by unilaterally imposing bigger reduction targets.

Question 2. Should the emission reduction target be based on Welsh consumption, or production, or both (i.e. should it take into consideration the CO2 generated in Wales (production), or the CO2 emissions that Wales’ residents are responsible for, regardless of their source (consumption))?

Consumption. Reducing demand is absolutely fundamental to carbon reduction. Consumption drives production.

Question 3. What particular challenges does Wales face in reducing CO2 emissions from households, and how can these challenges be overcome?

Carbon reductions achieved through energy saving measures such as cavity wall and loft insulation are not, unfortunately, realised by a change in consumer habits. For example, people do not reduce their programmed heating periods, and therefore continue to use the same amount of energy for heating. They stay warmer for longer.

Additionally there is growth in the use of electrical gadgets (see 'The Rise of the Machines’ by Energy Saving Trust http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/uploads/documents/aboutest/Riseofthemachines.pdf and 'The Ampere Strikes Back’ http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/aboutest/news/ampere/ ) which is driving up demand for electricity. Often, the concept of financial saving is matched with the concept of alternative spend, e.g. less money spent on energy bills can be spent on a cheap holiday.

So there is still a gap between the perception of lifestyles and the causes of accelerated climate change - public opinion is still favouring the selfish imperative ( more money, me, me, me) rather than the moral imperative (we are all responsible and we all have a duty to reduce our impact).

If we assume that the entire population of householders is willing to take steps towards reducing their carbon emissions, there are still barriers to wide scale action.

Although there has been an effective one-stop-shop for energy advice for nearly 15 years, it still does not have the profile of CAB for example. So people will still feel 'confusion’ when looking for advice - they may phone their local council, their energy supplier, energywatch or their HEES installer or grants agency, Care and Repair etc. So getting impartial advice about access to schemes is a barrier because of the lack of profile of the advice centres, which is being tackled now by WAG and the EST by implementation of the Sustainable Energy Network.

The availability of grants and schemes is not consistent, some local authorities have their own schemes which complement EEC schemes. Other don’t. It is fair to say that no-one should be paying full price for basic and common energy efficiency measures. So it is also fair to say that availability is not one of the challenges to reducing carbon emissions in households.

The housing mix could be argued to be a challenge. There is a much higher than (UK) average number of solid wall houses and a significant number of houses with no loft. The energy measures required for these do not often get discounted or grant aided. Therefore, unless there is the opportunity to install during a renovation or major works these measures are not installed. So, older buildings are more wasteful and often require more energy input.

However, there are a great many people who are aware of the issues and keen to spend their money on carbon reduction measures and technologies. There are people who are renovating existing buildings or developing new ones and are keen to invest in as many green features as they can. The planning process should be instrumental in ensuring adequate consideration is made by the applicant, and it should be robust enough to ensure that environmentally benign - low carbon design is implemented. That is, permission should not be granted if the application does not meet low carbon targets. And more importantly it should not be reversible on appeal should an applicant be refused permission because of a lack of low carbon features.

The opportunities presented by renewable energy technologies are wide ranging. On-site electricity generation reduces reliance on fossil fuel generated electricity, even if it is grid connected rather than an off-grid battery store system. It also contributes to distributing generation around the grid, which lowers the demand for centralised generation. It also provides an opportunity for a small scale generator to yield an income by selling excess units to an electricity supplier and by purchasing ROCs. This is, however, complex and bureaucratic, which is itself a barrier to maximising the benefits of installing renewable energy systems. (However such change in the markets is not within Wales’ devolved competencies).

Renewable energy systems link consumption with generation and demand with conservation. However, most technologies have not reached a mass market yet and therefore still bear a price premium.

Many people base their decision to use renewable energy technologies on cost. At the moment the Low Carbon Building Programme is the most widely available scheme, although some local authorities have provided grants for solar hot water systems. The grant level under LCBP has been reduced over the last year, so this is a disincentive for some people. The cost of renewable measures is a barrier, and unless there is a major scheme that encourages their take up and grows the market the cost will always be high. This expansion of the market creates its own problems, which are highlighted elsewhere

Question 4. To what extent has WAG been successful in utilising the powers available to it in order to reduce household CO2 emissions?

WAG has tried creating an incentive framework with local authorities to get them to roll out wide scale energy saving measures scheme. The Policy Agreements and in particular 7b attempted to set targets, upon whose completion there was a financial reward. However, there was no corresponding penalty for not achieving the targets. So all in all a bit toothless. HECA has been similarly ineffective at achieving a 30% reduction over ten years. (see Wales Audit Commission report into HECA).

Advice to householders has been provided via the Energy Saving Trust's Energy Efficiency Advice Centre programme - funded directly by DEFRA and therefore not subject to intervention by WAG. So the successes here cannot be ascribed to WAG.

There is a nascent Climate Change awareness programme now, but until that point WAG has not done much in the way of highlighting the issues (in the same way as it has done with waste reduction and recycling for example).

Climate change and carbon reduction have turned up in many strategies and consultations but there always lacked the link between strategy and implementation. Latterly the microgeneration action plan has made a commitment to supporting a Sustainable Energy Network in Wales to provide advice and leadership for households and communities, it has ambitious targets for microgeneration installation but perhaps represents the best effort made by WAG so far. Although in effect this will still be run by EST.

It could be argued that indirectly WAG has supported projects through its funding mechanisms - SDF, CCW etc. But this doesn't form part of a coherent plan and largely depends on the effectiveness of the projects that are funded.

Question 5. Could alternative targeting of WAG financial resources lead to greater household emissions reduction than is currently being achieved? If so, where could additional resources lead to greatest impact? (Please provide detail to support your evidence.)

There are a number of energy efficiency measures schemes around. Mostly run by the utilities under their EEC obligation. This provides discount measures to the able- to-pay sector and free measures to priority groups. These measures however are the common and cost effective ones, cavity wall insulation and loft insulation. Some councils run there own schemes e.g Powys run the CO2i scheme and Flintshire run the FlintsUlate scheme, which provide additional grants to householders. WAG itself funds the HEES scheme which is more about relieving fuel poverty than saving energy - sometimes both can be achieved.

Research has been done on the number and location of solid walled and off gas homes (http://www.energyefficiencywales.org.uk/) It shows that there is a significant number of hard to treat properties which fall outside of all the common schemes. Such homes require measures such as internal or external wall cladding, insulation panels placed in pitches, generally more high tech and high cost measures that no scheme manager wants to fund. In order to make an impact on the existing housing stock, certainly in rural Wales, funds could made available for these sorts of measures.

New build and new standards could make a big impact, although the proportion of the housing stock that is new is negligible at the moment. But enforcement of higher standards in new build and development would be a start. There is a commitment to seek devolution of the building regs, but this should be matched by the means to enforce. Planning issues have already been covered.

Microgen, as pointed out, people can make a more obvious link between supply of energy and the need to reduce demand. A Welsh Low Carbon Building Programme would be welcome as it would assist the expansion of the renewable energy market at the small scale. This would need to be matched with investment in an accreditation scheme and a training scheme in order to ensure a robust and quality market. It would be a problem if there were an expansion in the demand that creates a vacuum filled by 'cowboys' and predatory companies.

The main challenge to this is that the saving is pretty small, even if all potential microgen sites were used. But it serves the purpose of weaning the population off its reliance on fossil fuels, which is absolutely key for a number of reasons. Not least, general sustainability issues and the prospect of Peak Oil and an ensuing energy and economic crisis.

Question 6. What example from other administrations (devolved, UK and overseas) where other means have been used to achieve reductions in household CO2 emissions, could be adopted in Wales under current powers.

Northern Ireland had an investment of £54M from UKG to spend on renewable energy and low carbon measures. (http://www.nio.gov.uk/media-detail.htm?newsID=12785)

The Scottish executive invested in its own Scottish Community and Householder Renewables Initiative (SCHRI) http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2006/05/16100131

The Upper Austria region invested heavily to reduce carbon emission. http://www.managenergy.net/products/R85.htm

Question 7. In the context of the Government of Wales Act 2006, which further means of reducing CO2 emissions from households could only be achieved with the introduction of further legislative competence for the NAW.

Question 8. If specific CO2 emissions targets are to be set for Wales, should those targets be subdivided into shares by sector? If so what share of the total should reductions by households comprise?

About a third of UK emissions are from the domestic sector. Given the legislation in place that looks at business and industry, it would be appropriate to endeavour a minimum of 30% reduction in carbon emissions from this sector.