The Green Deal

[wobs]

I wonder what people will do with the leftover money after debt repayments have been made ( assuming that there was a net gain ) ? a nice budget carrier flight somewhere and some new polyester clothes maybe ?

Indeed, Jevons Paradox tells us that energy efficiency improvements results in more energy being consumed, not less. The only ways around this are:
* Using the savings to spend on renewables/nuclear or some other low carbon technology.
* Carbon taxes
* If the cost of the improvement doesn't pay back for many years, it may be that you don't go spending the savings. However, if the initial cost is that much, it may have an excessive embedded energy cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

 

[CliffordPope]

What happens if someone signs up for the deal and then goes off-grid with their own source of electricity?

 

[Penners]

I'm a cynical old sod

Not from where I'm standing, FF. I regard your approach is realistic rather than cynical. Unfortunately we have all witnessed so much tick-box "consultancy" that we'd be foolish not to have developed an inate suspicion of this breed of "advisor".

As for the "old", young feller-me-lad...! :wink:

 

[biffvernon]

What happens if someone signs up for the deal and then goes off-grid with their own source of electricity?

They've either not thought of that one (most likely) or concluded that so few people will go off-grid that the default rate will be acceptably small.

Allowing a debt repayment scheme to be tied, not even to a person, but to electricity bills associated with a property, has got to be a uniquely secure loan. I bet the numpty who thought of it was dead chuffed.

So yes, best way to game the system is to borrow the maximum ten grand and then go off-grid.

 

[worms]

What happens if someone signs up for the deal and then goes off-grid with their own source of electricity?

So yes, best way to game the system is to borrow the maximum ten grand and then go off-grid.

Bet there is some recovery default built in to the small print! And the debt remains tied to the property and transfers on sale... (How's that done? s106/s75 agreement? Burden on title deeds or what?)

 

[middi]

The "spend to save" sounds as good as " having more recycle bins will help to save the planet" to me.
Or " nations have to rely on growth to be economically sound", I always wonder when we will be fully grown

Middi

 

[Flyfisher]

As for the "old", young feller-me-lad...! :wink:

:lol:
I suppose it's all relative, though all my SAGA junk mail tells its own tale.

 

[worms]

By some coincidence, as part of the daily junk mail, I got a card today from The Geener Deal Ltd. Not sure if they came up with the name ahead of the similarly named Government Scheme and I have nothing against the company itself or what it is offering, but there is certainly scope for confusing the two!

One item they mention is: "Our unique system will optimise the incoming voltage to 220V giving householders immediate and significant energy savings for the home. Home appliances will have significant savings of anywhere between 10% and 17%. This includes fridges, freezers, washing machines, driers, dishwashers and lighting. Even a 10% saving on energy saving bulbs." Can our electrical engineers explain this one?

 

[Flyfisher]

There was a feature about that product (or similar) on R4 a few weeks ago. Essentially, it reduces mains voltage and therefore, they claim, you consume less power. Er, well, sort of. Simple resistive loads such kettles, ovens, hobs, washing machines etc WILL draw less instantaneous power but since boiling a kettle (for example) requires a certain amount of energy, if you use a less powerful heater it will simply take longer, thus the overall amount of power consumed will remain the same.

Furthermore, anything with a 'smart' power supply - which generally means TVs, PCs, chargers, i.e. almost everything other than heaters and filament bulbs - will automatically adjust to the lower voltage and simply draw more current in order to consume the same amount of power.

But don't take my word for it, there's an interesting discussion on the Institution of Engineering & Technology website at . . .
http://www.theiet.org/forums/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=205&threadid=45965
. . . including a link to the R4 programme I mentioned.

It also included this rather interesting link: http://www.which.co.uk/energy/energy-saving-products/guides/10-eco-products-you-dont-need/

 

[MdB]

As FF says, any heating element will operate with an approx 28% reduction in power output for a 15% reduction in voltage. This in turn will cause it to take 38% longer to reach temperature. Overall no power saving - you just end up waiting quite a bit longer. This will apply to your kettle, electric heater, immersion heater, heating element in dishwasher / washing machine etc.

Different types of motors will be affected in different ways - some with controllers will stay at the same speed / power usage. Others will operate at a lower power output so there will be a saving.

Filament bulbs will be dimmer but by more than the 28% reduction in the power output as they will be cooler and this causes more output to be in the infrared. It wouldn't surprise me if you ended up with something like 40% reduction in visible light output. I don't know enough details of the typical controllers in CFLs but they are likely to have feedback in the voltage boost which means that they will use the same power. TV's and stuff like that all have switchers in them nowadays so they will use the same power again.

Overall it doesn't sound a good idea to me.

 

[worms]

Thanks, that's kind of what I expected.

Perhaps these are different but any voltage regulators I have used in the past got warm while in use, so I guess there may also be an energy loss on the process of dropping the voltage?

 

[Flyfisher]

True, although the amount of heat dissipated depends on the type of voltage regulators. Crudely, so-called 'linear' regulators effectively just 'burn off' the excess energy and convert it to heat, thus although the output power is lower, the input power is actually not reduced at all and the difference is converted into heat - so not an energy saving device at all.

However, most regulators these days use 'switching' technology which is far more efficient and will therefore run much cooler than a linear device. Switching regulators also do not need large heavy transformers and large heatsinks (well, depending on their power ratings), which is why modern phone chargers, and the like, are so small.

 

[Penners]

Well done to everybody for studiously avoiding the word "con"!

 

[ilikecobwebs]

Just read Flyfisher's post from the 15th, and I agree utterly and absolutely. I went through the same thing many months back, needing one of these confounded epc things for selling another property (which in the end we never did, but that's another issue). These people just ignore the age and structure of a building and recommend ludicrous processes. It's all based on mathematics, with no regard to technical or structural difficulties in carrying recommendations out. For example I was suggested around £10,000 for drylining some of the walls, just to save £300 a year on bills. Its a Vic property, usual thick old walls, large rooms, etc; who in their right mind is going to borrow that sort of money just to save £300? OK I agree £300 is a fair amount, but look at the outlay!
It's not a "Deal" either. You're stuck having to pay the loan back through your electricity bills, as said, and others have already mentioned inherited debt.
Like Flyfisher, I'm debt-free right now, and intend to stay that way. I'm also cynical. This is a ploy, based on mythology about global warming, to coerce people into borrowing money when the current economic climate is more fragile than an egg. I'm not saying there's anything wrong in fitting more efficient stuff in your house, but really, loading folk with years of debt via their electric bills is cynical in itself. If I were buying a property, I'd be very careful about what I was taking on in terms of someone else's loan. People are going to be really struggling with their bills before the end of this year is out, when the global finances go pear-shaped.
They always say "if you need something done, do it yourself", and in this case I'd say "pay for it yourself and go stuff the Green Deal".

 

[LadyArowana]

Some nice thermal undies, wooly sweater and fleecy jacket seems like a cheaper option, do you think someone will give me a job consulting and going round telling people that? For really difficult cases I could add in a hot water bottle or suggest adopting a snuggly dog*

*I apologise to Mr P for use of the word "snuggly"

 

[Penners]

:evil:

 

[garnett]

I have to say I am rather surprised about the quality of debate on here as you are generally such a well informed group. I also think that people are getting a bit hung up on the residential and historic buildings.

The government will be rolling this out on commercial buildings first.

Imagine you run a primary school with oil powered heating that breaks down all the time and costs a fortune to run because it is 50 years old. Sounds familiar? That is most of our schools. With the green deal, the schools are able to raise enough capital to upgrade the buildings without substantial capital outlay. Ten years is a very short time in a commercial building. They get an immediate improvement on reliability and in ten years time the energy costs will drop by 50%.

I am doing work with the two biggest supermarkets at the moment. They are running a similar programme based on the simple fact that with their existing power consumption and rising energy costs, they will cease to make any profit from 2020. It has led to some very radical new store designs. If you are holidaying in Devon, have a look in both Dawlish and Seaton if you want to see what commercial buildings will look like in the future.

When residential buildings do start to feature significantly after the next election for obvious reasons, it will not be about energy assessors. The installers will not be able to install energy kit if it does not meet the specs required by the green deal but specified under building regs. It will be your choice if you prefer to fund it direct or use the green deal in lieu of the saving in energy cost. What would not be fair is if selfish home owners want to continue with the status quo with their old poor performance boiler when for the same cost they could have a clean boiler that is not polluting the environment and costing the rest of us a fortune because we are not meeting our carbon emissions targets.

Incidentally re EPC inspectors, I would expect a little more understanding on this site as people are genuinely well informed. You would not expect a jobbing builder to come in and carry out repairs to your lime plaster or thatch because they don’t have the knowledge to do it. You need to employ somebody with appropriate specialist understanding of historic buildings to do your EPC. We have several in Devon who understand cob and the need to let buildings breath. They have also pointed out to people in thatched buildings with wood burners and unlined flues that it is very likely that they will burn their building down! Sore point in Devon as we have had a four fold increase in thatch fires since log burners became trendy.

This subject is not as one sided as it appears!

A Conservation Officer who loves saving historic buildings but would also like a planet to sit them on or in my case, be underwater due to global warming.

 

[JohnB]

For example I was suggested around £10,000 for drylining some of the walls, just to save £300 a year on bills. Its a Vic property, usual thick old walls, large rooms, etc

Apparently the Building Research Establishment have decided that drylining doesn't work, as it leads to damp, and rotting plasterboard. I wonder what happens when the drylining fails, but the loan hasn't been repaid.

 

[Flyfisher]

I have to say I am rather surprised about the quality of debate on here as you are generally such a well informed group.

I hope I've not given the impression that I'm particularly well-informed, only that I've based my comments on my personal experience. I think I mentioned that I'd be happy to be corrected at any time - we're all here to learn after all.

The government will be rolling this out on commercial buildings first.

Imagine you run a primary school with oil powered heating that breaks down all the time and costs a fortune to run because it is 50 years old. Sounds familiar? That is most of our schools. With the green deal, the schools are able to raise enough capital to upgrade the buildings without substantial capital outlay. Ten years is a very short time in a commercial building. They get an immediate improvement on reliability and in ten years time the energy costs will drop by 50%.

Apart from general concerns over other poorly performing PFI type deals, it's a brave person who will forecast a 50% reduction in energy costs in 10 years time. I can understand energy consumption being halved by all sorts of initiatives, which is probably a good thing, but I'm personally resigned to at least paying the same for my energy consumption as increasing prices roughly balances reduced consumption. I drive a good deal fewer miles in my car than I used to but my petrol costs don't seem to be going down.

Incidentally re EPC inspectors, I would expect a little more understanding on this site as people are genuinely well informed. You would not expect a jobbing builder to come in and carry out repairs to your lime plaster or thatch because they don’t have the knowledge to do it. You need to employ somebody with appropriate specialist understanding of historic buildings to do your EPC.

My EPC comments actually referred to a 1950s house, so fairly standard as far as housing stock is concerned. However, I wasn't really having a dig at the EPC inspector personally, more the poor implementation of the whole scheme. The idea might be good but the execution seems lamentable, in my limited experience.

But my biggest complaint about the EPC process is that buildings don't consume energy, people do. Yet there was no data collected about our existing energy bills against which potential energy savings could be judged. Everything is simply tick-boxed and averaged. Thus a house of X volume of Y construction with gas central heating is expected to consume Z energy - which I'm sure it would do, on average, but in our particular case we tended to use the central heating to provide only a low-level of background heat and a wood fire in the drawing room and electric blankets in the bedroom, which considerably reduced our energy consumption.

I fully realise that government finds it easier to work with averages but when it comes to them trying to tell me that I should borrow large sums of money in order to reduce my energy consumption, I'm afraid that I'm not really interested in their average figures but only my actual ones. Hence my reluctance to be impressed by the recommendation to spend £3500 to save £118 per year when I could save a similar amount by wearing long-johns or an extra tee-shirt instead and avoid any long-term financial commitment.

This subject is not as one sided as it appears!

A Conservation Officer who loves saving historic buildings but would also like a planet to sit them on or in my case, be underwater due to global warming.

I absolutely agree. Perhaps we should further discuss how people will spend all the money they will save if they implement these energy saving measures, as Milady has already mentioned above? Or perhaps the 'real idea' is to encourage people to pay for energy-saving measures so they can halve their energy consumption and then be able to afford to pay twice as much, thus averaging things out. Such a thing really would be 'green' because it would reduce energy consumption but not divert any spending onto energy-consuming things elsewhere . . . but that's not really a vote-winning strategy is it? :wink:

I don't mean to be trivial and dismiss things such as the 'green deal' out of hand - far from it because it's a hugely serious subject - but I do think it's fair to critically scrutinise such schemes.

 

[garnett]

Thanks Flyfisher

Don't put yourselves down. Many Conservation Officers come here for advice as there is no replacement for doing restoration for real.

All that University and my post grad taught me is how little I know rather than how much! It did teach me how to recognise good advice from bad which is why I point historic building owners here. It gets a little more frustrating when a slightly OT area like this is discussed posters don't have the years of building restoration experience to inform the debate, but people still take a lot of notice of what you say. Conservation Officers are at the instruction of government spending lots of time in this specific field at the moment so some of the statements being made don't appear to stand up to the usual rigour.

On the schools question, I just discussed this with our environment policy officer. There are companies coming forward in this market offering cheaper funding than the green deal with a guaranteed pay off period because the saving is so huge for schools. Last time I went to the BRE to look at the code 6 houses, they reckoned that the average winter heating requirement for the building was 200W! As a human kicks out 100W you very soon don't need heating.
In schools each class has 30 x 100w so with the right energy upgrades the 50% saving is easily obtainable. The difficulty as with most new builds is not heating - it is keeping them cool. Schools are empty at time of peak load for cooling.

You are very right about the need to teach people about operating a building efficiently. We work closely with a team of building scientists at a local university. They have showed us how inefficient most solar installations are if owners don't understand how they work. We saw an hour by hour output from a church installation. The shadow of a flag rope passed across the array for 5 hours and output dropped for that time by 90% as solar panels work in series. If one cell has a shadow in it the current stops!

I had another chap recently insisting that he be allowed to put an air source heat pump on the roof of his listed building. He could not accept that a building needed to be super insulated for a heat pump to work or else it is an electric fan heater!

Keep up the good work.

Garnett