Conclusion
We’ve been living here for 18 months. The house is very comfortable, light, and cheap to run. The grant for insulation is a great help but there’s less help toward cutting down the infiltration rate. The interest rates on the Green Deal made it very unattractive. The FIT and RHI are significant contributions in what is a progressive route of improvement, but there’s a big gap in funding and not enough money available to meet the required pace of change.
The house was awarded Superhomes status in 2015 and was assessed as having achieved an 81% reduction in CO², not 100% because of the imported renewable energy.
We had the money and chose to use it to fill that gap so now we get the benefit, but not many households have the same opportunity. If we were using gas instead of imported renewable electricity we would be producing much more CO² which is what most people are doing. Importing renewable electricity may not be the perfect solution but it works. We have made a rapid reduction in our carbon emissions and as money becomes available we can make improvements that will further reduce our reliance on imported electricity.
The Committee on Climate Change report of June 2015 warns of a policy gap which is increasing the risk of failing to meet the target of an 80% reduction by 2050 and calls for, ‘more government support for UK industry which is well placed to compete in many areas of green innovation, to continue the commitment to energy efficiency and to implement commitments on Zero Carbon Homes for 2016 without further weakening and ensure incentives are in place to encourage low-carbon heat sources.
Just at the moment the opposite seems to be happening with the axing of solar subsidies, the removal of renewable energy subsidies, the end of the Green Deal, the selling off of the green investment bank, the encouragement of fracking, dropping of the green tax target, and the Swansea Bay lagoon project being lined up for the chop.
Nigel Humphrey MAS
Nigel’s architecture practice, MAS was founded in 2004 by Nigel Humphrey in response to the increasing demand from clients for his style of well designed, energy-efficient, and sustainable buildings. The practise was moved from Somerset to Cardiff in 2013, and the first project has been Awarded Superhomes status as well as a Geen Apple Award.
