Renewables just got a lot more interesting.

From April this year, a scheme will be launched that encourages British homes and small businesses to generate renewable electricity by paying you to produce it.

That means paying you for every unit you produce, up to 5 MWh a year — even what you use yourself.

It makes £0 energy bills a reality, and turns solar panels and wind turbines into an investment that can potentially generate you an 8% return.

“Clean Energy Cashback” is what Ed Milliband calls it. It’s not a new idea: elsewhere it’s called a Feed-In Tariff, and has boosted wind and solar electricity production in Germay, Spain, Denmark and elsewhere. Many said it wouldn’t happen in the UK: with 63 other schemes in place worldwide, we’re playing catch-up. But a look at the plans reveals that we’re getting a scheme with a few differences.

So let’s look at our new way of selling energy to ourselves. Is it good for homes, for businesses, and if not, why do we need it?

(more…)

Commercial property for sale or rent. No EPC yet? That used to mean nothing particularly bad: a complaint at worst.

Now, it’s getting a bit more serious. There’s a law change on the way, with tougher penalties and easier triggers on the way. And there really isn’t long to comply (although it’s not as bad as… see bottom of this post…)

Compliance on commercial EPCs is amazingly low

For a whole year now, it’s been a legal requirement to have an EPC available on any commercial property for sale or rent. So everybody must be doing it, right?
(more…)

An example of a boiler that could be scrapped

A good start to the New Year: the Energy Saving Trust is rolling out the Boiler Scrappage Scheme announced in the pre-budget report. This is one of the NHER’s key recommendations to the Government, so it’s good to see things moving quickly.

The aim is to improve Britain’s energy efficiency, to save people’s energy bills, and boost the gas fitting and boiler manufacturing industries. Three birds—one stone.

Although as you’d expect, the scheme is not perfect: it missed a chance to make better use of EPC assessors, and it could be open to a touch of abuse.

How’s this for an unexpected Christmas present: lower heating bills for life?

Exterior solid wall insulation will lower residents' heating bills

That’s what residents of Rawnsley House in Bristol are getting. The entire block of flats is being clad with heat-saving solid wall insulation – and it’s arriving just in time for the coldest months of the year. Our EPC show how valuable this Christmas wrapping could be.

The giver is none other than their landlord, Bristol City Council (how many of us are expecting Christmas gifts from our landlords?) And unlike some energy efficiency measures, this one’s very visible: you can really see what you’re getting (see photo below)…

(more…)

Only a few days to go until 98 world leaders and hundreds of other delegates descend on Copenhagen to talk climate, energy, and CO² at the United Nations’ COP15 summit.

They’re all set to negotiate on committing our various nations to new carbon reduction targets, so of course they’ll be primed with months of research, projections, feasibility studies and so on.

But if world leaders were to get to the Danish capital a few days early and have a nose around the country that’s hosting the summit, they’d pick up a large number of clues as to what they could be doing already.

It’s no accident that Denmark is the host for these negotiations.  The Danes have been pretty focused on energy reduction since the 1973 oil crisis, and having upped the effort further in the last decade, there’s plenty of progress to put on show.

Danish lessons…

So before the Copenhagen delegates start haggling over CO² targets, here’s my rundown of five “Danish Lessons” world leaders could learn from the the country hosting the summit.

(more…)

Everyone who sets up a business believes they have something unique to offer. And if you’re good enough at it, finding and keeping customers shouldn’t be a problem… right?

In practice, often something else happens. As more and more competitors come along, many of them competing on price, it’s easy to feel that you have to cut your quotes too. Sooner or later, you’ve lost sight of what makes you good in the first place. Many businesses end up taking on more and more work just to pay the same bills.

What can you do when everybody around you is cutting throats and cutting prices to stay in business?

(more…)

One of the most common things my team encounters when doing a domestic EPC assessment is that people think the work to improve energy efficiency will be unaffordable. Or to put it more bluntly,

“It’s all very well suggesting home improvements, but where do you think we’re going to find the money for that?”

The good news is, though: in many cases, there’s free money available to do it. More surprisingly still – it’s money we’ve already paid out!
(more…)

Hello and welcome to my industry blog. Yes, my name is Peter Kay and no, I don’t know the way to Amarillo – but I do know a thing or two about energy performance certificates and home information packs and I will be blogging about all sorts of things related to my industry. I and my team members have a wealth of experience to draw on as we discuss matters relating to energy efficiency and selling your property.

(more…)