We need to incorporate more renewable power and reduce energy waste.
Photograph: Jon Sparks/Alamy
We are at a critical juncture when it comes to global heating, which means we’ve got one foot in the old world as the other dips into the new. Our carbon-generating lifestyles are still the norm, but the majority of people in the UK want to help the country reach its goal to be zero carbon by 2050. That could be from personal choices at home – such as washing at a cooler setting – through to the installation of smart meters, the benefits of which are truly felt at a national level.
The trouble is, says David Joffe, head of carbon budgets at the Committee on Climate Change, “there seems to be an absence of knowledge within public discourse about what are the things that we can do as individuals, as households, as communities”.
While many of us dutifully fuss over plastic use and recycling, the carbon strategists figuring out how to avoid the worst-case scenarios of global heating see this happening at the expense of more significant ways in which we can reduce our carbon footprints.
“People don’t have a good sense of what are the important things to do,” says Joffe.
According to a new report released by Smart Energy GB, a fundamental piece of the puzzle has been squeezed out of the picture. Amid the media maelstrom over the future of the planet, swirling with reports of melting glaciers, children marching with heartbreaking “no planet B” placards, and whizzy carbon-capture technologies; less than 3% of media coverage and social media discussions on the climate crisis over the past two years have mentioned energy efficiency, says the report.
And yet there are 29m homes in the UK, with 1.5m more in the pipeline. “Government stats for 2018 put the residential sector’s emissions at 18% of total UK CO2, so a very significant contributor and opportunity for reduction,” says Tom Heel, business development director at Oxford’s Low Carbon Hub – a social enterprise tackling energy usage at a community level. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that if all UK households improved energy efficiency, including getting a smart meter, this could save up to 54m tonnes of carbon dioxide – 11% of the UK’s 2050 target.
Joffe suspects that one reason why domestic energy efficiency has been eclipsed by topics such as the race to decarbonise energy, is that it’s such a well-established necessity that it’s taken as a given. In effect, it is no longer news. But while decarbonising our energy is crucial, especially when it comes to heating, which along with hot water, accounts for “broadly speaking, about 60% of your energy bill,” says Joffe, we need to make immediate gains in the meantime. “It’s really urgent to start making progress,” he says. “The next 10 years will be crucial.”
While energy-saving habits – like not leaving lights on, are worth instilling, the truth is that most homes in the UK, along with our power infrastructure, will need more radical overhauls if the climate emergency is to be averted. We might need to adopt electric heat pumps to supplement and eventually replace their carbon-burning equivalents.
Hydrogen boilers are another carbon-free route to warm homes and hot water on tap. Meanwhile, gas boilers across the nation are puffing away overtime to heat poorly insulated homes in need of insulation upgrades. As Joffe says: “Energy efficiency is absolutely crucial to the decarbonisation of buildings.”
Unlike decisions around flying and moving to plant-based diets, it’s about using energy more efficiently, rather than going without, such as using high-consumption devices when demand is lower.
However, the climate emergency has become too urgent an issue, says Joffe, and can “no longer be tiptoed around. That 11% matters and it’s important to know that we’re all in this together. This is a collective effort.”
As we enter uncharted territory, our initial push for change is bound to be a little muddy, and Joffe agrees that clear certification would help move things on, as would embracing new technologies such as smart meters. Smart meters measure how much electricity and gas you’re using and display this information in near-real time, along with how much it’s costing you. They feed your precise usage data back to your energy supplier and network operators, which means that no one needs to read a meter manually any more. This regular transmission of energy data on a national scale will help the energy network to better manage supply and demand, incorporate more renewable power and reduce the amount of energy wasted through the process of generation to supply. They’re also a first step in being able to assess domestic power needs more accurately, in order to make efficiency recommendations for both.
Energy performance certificates, for example, are currently based on mere assumption. When Joffe had a hybrid heat pump installed in his home, running in conjunction with a gas boiler, it came with a smart control system. “It learns how my home behaves, how quickly it loses the heat, because it needs to know how much heat to put in.”
If this information existed for every household, suppliers could be held accountable for their work. “If someone comes and says I can improve your home from an E rating to a C rating, how do you tell whether they’ve done it well, if you can’t measure that?” says Joffe.
This information would also enable power suppliers to target their energy production more efficiently. Then, when it comes to fully decarbonising a home, informed decisions can be made on the best solution on a home-by-home basis. Because as we know, every home is unique.
By working together with a nationwide smart energy system, that net-zero 2050 target becomes all the more achievable.
Part of Britain’s commitment to creating a more sustainable, low-carbon future includes making our energy network “smarter” – implementing digital tech to make our energy system more responsive to increased demand and variable wind speed. By collecting data on our energy use through smart meters, our network can better understand, plan for and balance out peaks and troughs in demand, making it easier to integrate renewable energy sources.
This article was paid for by Smart Energy GB, a government-backed organisation tasked with informing Great Britain about the smart meter rollout.
