Article date:2 August 2010
Written by:Jose Espinosa
Sustain has welcomed the Government's emphasis on energy efficiency outlined in the first annual energy statement, but says more detail is needed on how private sector investment will be stimulated to support this drive.
Peregrine Fraser, director at Sustain, said: "We welcome the emphasis on energy efficiency, after all the greenest energy is the energy that isn't used. However, we need to see the detail on how private sector investment will be stimulated to help achieve this. We would also like to see more of a focus on tackling behaviour change - without this we will not achieve the energy reduction targets that are needed.
"The feed in tariff (FIT) has been a good stimulus, encouraging industry to adopt renewable energy, but we would argue that the renewable heat incentive (RHI) is more important as an instrument for change. Energy used to heat space and water in domestic and non-domestic buildings accounts for the majority of their energy use so support for technologies, such as solar thermal and heat pumps, is key. We hope the Government is not going to withdraw its commitment from this scheme.
"We would like to see specific measures and legislation introduced to enforce building appraisals which measure the building's embodied energy - the energy used in construction - and the energy used to run it. We'd also like to see a new class of Energy Performance Certificates and Display Energy Certificates so that comparisons between design criteria and the actual performance of buildings are published."
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