Climate change blog – energy performance metrics and the potential they offer on our path to net zero
In this month’s climate change blog Nigel Riglar, Chair of the ADEPT Climate Change Board and Executive Director - Place for South Gloucestershire Council, explores the impact of energy performance metrics and their potential for development planning and building regulations.
The pathway to net zero and the changes needed to meet government targets on carbon reduction often feel complex. What is clear is that the key to success will be collaboration, creative new thinking and accurate monitoring and measuring to ensure targets are met.
From time to time, ideas to support and secure better data and ultimately better results arise. These ideas can often require significant changes to the status quo, which can be time-consuming but are the best way forward.
The Climate and Nature Emergency Team at South Gloucestershire Council currently find themselves in this position in relation to current government policy on Building Regulations and measuring energy efficiencies.
Identifying new possibilities
Since 2020 South Gloucestershire Council has been undertaking a local planning review and preparing updated policies on energy and climate change. One part of this future planning has been to propose the use of energy metrics to specify the performance of new buildings.
Currently, the Building Regulations use a combination of CO2 emissions and fabric efficiency standards to define the performance standards in new buildings. However, as heating switches from gas to electricity and the grid electricity becomes less carbon intensive, CO2 emissions become less reliable as a proxy for building energy performance. In addition to this, unregulated energy use within the building, essentially anything temporary or plugged in (TVs, laptops etc), is not covered by the Building Regulations.
What this means is that the strain on the infrastructure does not diminish and indeed, with more homes and amenities being planned and built, the need for energy from the existing systems actually increases. Although carbon figures may appear to be dropping, energy uses, needs and requirements are not. This is why we feel changes to the current system are required.
Reducing the carbon footprint whilst also reducing the amount of energy a building requires, has been our focus throughout the review and planning process. Our long-term aim is to reduce the amount of energy all future developments require for heating, lighting and operations, reducing the burden on our energy infrastructure, using renewable energy resources more efficiently as well as securing a reduction in emissions.
In our local planning review and in the policies that we propose, a different measuring metric is offered as a better source of data and a clearer indicator of energy efficiency. Energy performance metrics offer greater and more reliable insight into the energy use of a building, regardless of the source and the carbon intensity of the energy being used.
Understanding the technical specifics
On 6th December 2023 we opened a Phase 3 (Regulation 18) consultation on our new local plan. This draft local plan includes a policy on operational energy entitled ‘Energy Management in New Development’ which requires new developments to meet new performance standards, namely, an upper limit to the annual requirement for space heating and total energy use, also known as Energy Use Intensity. To allow comparison between buildings, both targets are expressed as energy use per square meter of floor area (kWh/m2.yr).
In addition to measuring energy use in this way, new developments will also be required to achieve ‘net zero energy’. In essence this means that energy generated from on-site renewable technologies is equal to or greater than the total energy demand of the building, on an annual basis.
These proposals and new requirements go significantly beyond the current performance standards defined by Part L of the Building Regulations. They were led by Louisa Haines, Senior Climate and Nature Emergency Officer, Barry Wyatt, Climate and Nature Emergency Manager and Mark Letcher, Low Carbon Projects/Heat Networks Consultant with the Climate and Nature Emergency Team at South Gloucestershire Council.
The research and development were undertaken in collaboration with North Somerset Council, Bristol City Council and Bath and North East Somerset Council.
Having crunched the numbers since 2020, our team and our collaborative partners are confident that they reflect the performance uplift required to achieve the government’s COP26 Nationally Determined Contribution of a 68% reduction in emissions by 2030 (from a 1990 baseline). They also echo the advice of the Climate Change Committee to government on the steps to net zero. Their inclusion followed periods of extensive research and consultations with experts in the sector, including Etude, WPS, Currie and Brown, CIBSE, UKGBC and The Centre for Sustainable Energy.
Despite the extensive and exhaustive research and planning, the Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) issued by the government on the 13th of December 2023 does not support the use of energy efficiency metrics beyond those calculating carbon, which as we’ve shown, will become increasingly less valid as time goes on.
Next steps
Knowing that we have identified an excellent opportunity to implement real and lasting change to the way new developments use energy, we have contributed a witness statement to a Judicial Review of the WMS, which is being brought by the community group Rights: Community: Action.
In our witness statement, Barry Wyatt outlines the key issues with continuing to use the carbon measuring metric and the clear benefits of shifting to a system that allows us to not only measure the energy efficiency of a building but also to measure it accurately against other buildings.
In our view, alongside our sector collaborators and neighbouring authorities, there is a clear case and ultimately a necessity to move to energy performance metrics as soon as possible.
We believe there is a major opportunity to shape better long-term place, infrastructure and housing outcomes by shifting to a net zero energy mindset and we will continue to work actively with partners from across sectors to secure a review of the WMS.
We will continue update ADEPT members on this vital conversation as it progresses.
Further information
Author
- Nigel Riglar, Chair of the ADEPT Climate Change Board and Executive Director - Place for South Gloucestershire Council
