Energy Incoherence

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Doug King

This has been an interesting month for revealing the effects of the lack of a coherent UK energy policy.

Three fossil fuel power stations have closed; Cockenzie in Scotland (1GW Coal), Didcot A (2GW coal) and Fawley (1GW oil). These recent closures bring the total closures since December 2012 to 7.5GW accounting for about 10% of UK generating capacity.

Didcot A Power Station These stations were built at a time when we didn’t recognise the damage that carbon dioxide does to our ecosystem, but we did recognise the importance of domestic industry. The UK had, and still has, extensive coal reserves and our power stations were built to exploit this and create growth in UK industrial capacity at a time of optimism.

The closures occurred not because the stations were failing, but due to European legislation on air pollution and a hike in UK carbon taxation. These stations could have continued in operation if pollution control had been installed, or until 2015 in any case under the European Large Combustion Plant Directive. However it appears that the majority of operators have chosen instead to run them flat out during the profitable winter period and shut them down on the eve of a new tax on fossil fuel. The ‘Carbon Floor Price’, to be introduced on 1st April, has a stated purpose of making fossil fuel generation uncompetitive. Congratulations Mr Osborne, you’ve succeeded!

In the same month, the UK’s largest remaining coal mine, Daw Mill Colliery was pushed over the edge of financial viability by an underground fire and closed. The price of coal on the international market has collapsed, pushed down by a glut of american coal caused by their rush to shale gas. Private electricity generators will of course buy coal at the lowest cost available, making the UK coal industry ultimately unviable.

A total of 1000 energy industry jobs have been lost in March.

It is estimated that despite the closure of the majority of coal power stations by 2015, our reliance on imported coal to generate electricity will rise by 70% as the UK coal industry collapses. Of course these power station closures will also increase our reliance on gas to generate electricity. We already import half of gas consumed in the UK and this is expected to rise to 70% by 2019.

We saw an example this month, coincidentally on the day that Didcot A closed, of our sensitivity to gas imports. The UK-Belgian gas pipeline suffered a fault in a dewatering pump and had to be shut down for half a day. During that period the price of gas jumped 50% to an all time high, as it became temporarily scarce. During one of the coldest weeks we’ve experienced for a while, our national reserve of gas was reduced to just 36 hours.

Surely a national energy policy should address energy security and jobs as well as carbon.

Government seems to be banking on new gas generation coming along to fill the gap until the new nuclear power stations come on line. However its policies are focused on renewable energy and its rhetoric is all about beating up energy companies to keep bills low. It has taken its eye off the ball with regard to energy security, jobs and UK industry.

We have a privatised, fragmented energy system whose individual players won’t make necessary investments in new capacity unless they are confident of a return. If Government will not give them that confidence through coherent policy then they won’t invest until market forces drive energy prices sufficiently high. Once electricity becomes a scarce commodity the price will increase, that is the way of the market. If the lights start going out then maybe Government will be happier to discuss the subsidies energy companies are asking for in the absence of policy, but of course, by then, subsidies will be unnecessary.

HMRC in Meltdown

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Doug King

For once I’m not writing about the environment or the construction industry, but an issue that will affect virtually everyone. I had a long conversation with my accountant yesterday about the implications of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) new requirement for real time reporting of payroll taxation.

From April all businesses must report to HMRC the payroll deductions and payments made to all employees on the day that the payments are made! This is to be known as Real Time Information or RTI.

Back in 2010, HMRC told Channel 4 News that over 40 million UK employees pay tax through PAYE. That means that presently UK employers will submit 40 million annual returns during the 6 weeks following the end of the tax year. From April, UK employers will submit 40 million RTI returns on the last Friday of the month every month!

HMRC is of course introducing a new IT system to allow all the RTI to be submitted online. But remember back in 2008 when HMRC mandated online filing for personal tax returns? On the filing deadline day HMRC’s servers crashed with just 104,000 people accessing the system, leaving 10,000s unable to do so. Do we really believe that just 5 years on HMRC have developed a system which will be able to handle a 400 fold increase in submissions and do it every month reliably?

Also woe betide any employer who makes a mistake in either the calculation or the payment amount. Penalties will apply immediately for any inaccuracy in the RTI reporting. Businesses previously had the opportunity to correct any mistake at the next month provided that the end of year returns were correct. Back to the 2010 Chanel 4 News piece and HMRC also reported that the were 5.7 million mistakes in PAYE calculations and payments. This would be an average of 475,000 mistakes per month, clearly a nice little earner if penalties were applied to each one under the new system.

However, note also that last year HMRC left 1 million letters unanswered. If actions on payroll errors are going to be piling up at a rate of around 1 million every two months, I wonder how long it will take the RTI system to collapse under the backlog? Does anyone want to take a bet with me? I give it six months.

Low Carbon People

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Doug King

MP Don Foster announced at Ecobuild this week, funding for a programme by the Zero Carbon Hub to investigate why energy consumption in low carbon dwellings is higher than expected. The answer is apparent in evidence also available at Ecobuild pointing to the obvious, which the industry and policy makers continue to fail to recognise.

On Tuesday, Ed Davey defended the Green Deal in the face of poor take up and a recent YouGov survey which revealed that the majority of householders have little interest in energy conservation and believe instead that the energy companies should be forced to lower their charges.

In the Edge Debate on Politics of Carbon Measurement, on Wednesday, Lynne Sullivan showed that actual energy consumption in Passivhaus dwellings is 90% below the average and substantially below the best of the rest.

So the reason for the performance gap between prediction and actual outcomes in low carbon homes should be obvious to all:

Passivhaus homes are voluntary. They are built or commissioned by individuals who are already concerned about their carbon footprint and are therefore pre-disposed to a low energy lifestyle.

The Code for Sustainable Homes, Building Regulations Part L et al are well meaning in intent, but the people who will buy the homes are no more interested in energy conservation than the average Briton. They will happily leave the heating on and open all the windows.

Studies of low carbon refurbishments by social housing landlords have already shown the vast variation in energy consumption in identically refurbished flats that occurs simply as a result of lifestyle. In some cases this variation is so great that it actually masks the improvement in efficiency achieved in the refurbishment.

The message is clear. Personal preference and individual behaviour is what drives energy consumption or conservation, not fantastic building fabric energy efficiency standards, nor regulation or checklists and not energy bills (at least yet).

When are politicians going to finally wake up and admit that the climate change and energy crisis is down to the way in which we all behave, not the buildings we behave in. If we want to make any substantial progress on sustainability it is time to start apportioning blame where it really belongs: the workmen (and workwomen) not the tools. Then we need to get on with changing people’s attitudes towards energy.

Right to Low Carbon

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Doug King

This week all attention seems on rights to light. A proposal has been made that the historic right to occupy your home without needing to turn the lights on during the hours of daylight could be brushed away in order to permit more dense urban development.

Surely this is another example of legislators failing to consider the consequences of their actions. We are driving forward with national legislation to force all new buildings to become zero carbon in an attempt to meet our carbon budgets. Meanwhile, work by the Green Construction Board indicates that we will need to work just as hard, if not harder, to cut carbon emissions from the existing building stock. Now we have a proposal that will force an increase in energy consumption on the neighbours of new development that is deemed desirable. I have no doubt that the desirability of the new developments will be based on their energy efficiency credentials, so who actually stands to win from this situation?

However, in the sustainable urban future, we will find that other rights become just as important as rights to light. Our plan to decarbonise the UK presently relies on the pervasive use of PV in the urban environment to supposedly offset carbon emissions at other times of the year. As taxation falls more heavily on carbon emissions I believe that we will see more and more legal disputes over someone interfering with neighbours attempts to cut energy consumption. This will not be just over rights to daylight, but I predict disputes over rights to unpolluted fresh air for natural ventilation and access to renewable energy sources such as the wind and sunshine.

This PV installation was an exemplar when installed, until the neighbours built higher.

Since Government is presently considering changes to legislation on rights to light, now is the time to look to the future that we want to build for ourselves and implement broader and better informed legislation that protects building owners rights to comply with carbon emissions legislation in the manner that suits them best.

Sharanam, India

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Doug King

Last week I had the privilege of working with a couple of architects in India who have given up a substantial portion of their professional lives to work voluntarily for an NGO, the Sri Aurobindo Society, on a new centre for village development and education.

Jateen Lad and his assistant, Trupti Doshi, have constructed a building of great beauty and power which will act as a focus for education and enabling activities by the Society, but they have done so much more than simply designing a building. Sharanam, as the building is known, is a village development project in its own right. Over the last seven years Jateen and the team from the Society have used the construction project as a vehicle to train and empower local villagers.

Sharanam has been made by hand by the villagers who will use it.

Men that would previously have only been able to get work on building sites as unskilled labourers have become masons with valuable skills to sell. They have used hand made, compressed earth bricks to create an expression of architecture far removed from the vernacular from which the brick making evolved. The bricks manufactured at Sharanam actually exceed the strength of conventional kiln fired bricks in India (which admittedly are of very poor quality). Jateen has also taught the masons how to design and make pre-cast concrete elements which, being hand finished have a quality we cannot find in the UK.

I was in India as I had been commissioned to work with Jateen and his team on a sustainable masterplan for a residential management training centre, to be located on a farm far from conventional services and facilities, and so would need to be virtually self sufficient in energy, water and waste management. However, whilst I was there, I was also able to make the next step in revitalising indigenous construction skills and prepare the Sharanam masons to contribute to future construction projects. With a design for a precast T section beam I demonstrated what we in the UK know as a beam and block floor and the local masons totally got it. This method of construction is unknown in modern India where all construction is now in-situ concrete and therefore dominated by large contractors.

Making a beam and block floor Sharanam style.

However, a beam and block floor of this design can be manufactured and installed largely using manual labour, not machines. This gives the underemployed villagers of Southern India a method of constructing high quality buildings for themselves with local skills and materials as well as a new found self esteem and employment opportunities.