Association welcomes energy efficiency standard

25 November 2009

The Construction Products Association has welcomed the announcement by housing minister John Healey MP which confirms that this country will require all new homes to be zero carbon as a matter of law from 2016.

Over the past year the construction industry and other stakeholders have been developing a workable definition of zero carbon for new homes that can also truly deliver 'no new carbon' for each and every new home from 2016. As part of that work the Construction Products Association has been heavily involved with the Zero Carbon Hub which was asked by government to coordinate the work.

John Tebbit, industry affairs director at the Construction Products Association said: 'The zero carbon definition tends to be explained in an overly complex way when in fact it is very simple. A typical home built to today's standards emits about 2 tonnes of CO2 from regulated uses such as heating, hot water and fixed lighting and about another 1.5 tonnes from unregulated uses such as electricity for cookers, TVs and other appliances. A zero carbon home will have to take all of that down to zero.

'This is done in three stages. The first stage is to set a very high standard for the energy efficiency of the home itself. This means the walls, roof, floor and windows all need to be built to high energy efficient standards and care taken to reduce air leakage. It is essential that the fundamental fabric of the home saves as much energy as possible, because this is what sits there, does not need to be turned on or off, does not need energy and lasts for a very long time. Getting this right can cut the 2 tonnes of regulated CO2 by up to a third.

'The next stage is known as 'carbon compliance' and it covers all the heating, hot water and lighting. It includes on site renewable energy such as solar thermal and photo voltaics. The zero carbon home has to achieve a minimum 70% reduction compared to today's home using these technologies, so the CO2 left is now the 1.5 tonnes from unregulated use plus 0.6 tonnes from regulated uses making 2.1 tonnes.

'The final stage is 'allowable solutions' which covers a number of options although none have been confirmed as yet. The housebuilder could decide to put more on site renewables into the home and generate enough zero carbon electricity to offset the remaining 2.1 tonnes of CO2. That could be done with about 40m2 or 50m2 of photo voltaic panels for instance. The housebuilder might decide to build the home to extremely high standards to reduce the regulated emissions further to save on the amount of photo voltaics. He could possibly invest in a new renewable energy scheme with others and give ownership to the home owner or even upgrade existing stock to save the 2.1 tonnes of CO2.'

The Association believes that much confusion has been caused by the term 'zero carbon' and that 'no new carbon' would be a clearer and more accurate term.

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