Less is (worth) More – Why House Builders should be Selling Sustainability

“Housebuilders could make more money if only they properly sold the lower running costs of new homes to their customers.”

So says a recent report from the influential NHBC Trust, Today’s attitudes to low and zero carbon homes, which shows how house-builders are losing out because they lag behind their customers in their views on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

It’s an impressively thorough piece of research, based on a large number of interviews with the general public and group sessions with occupants of new and low-energy homes.  The report is full of information on current attitudes and views towards energy efficiency, renewables and buying homes.  Knowing that all readers of the solarblogger are important and busy people, who might struggle to find the time to digest the whole 130 pages, here are some key points from the report.

Energy Matters

People are becoming more and more aware of energy costs and their impact on the environment.  Fully 96% of people surveyed said that their energy costs were important to them, 65% saying they were very important.

Surveying people who had moved into new homes, an overall majority said that the energy efficiency features made the home more attractive.  Those living in homes that had been built to a higher level of energy efficiency placed even greater emphasis on this.

People will pay

The house-building industry has been so concerned about the additional costs of building to higher levels of energy performance, it is missing out on an opportunity.  The survey indicates very strongly that energy efficiency does influence people's buying decisions.  Rather than seeing energy efficiency measures as a costly inconvenience, house builders could turn this on its head and promote the benefits to prospective customers.

Energy efficiency was the equal sixth most important factor in choosing a home to buy or rent.  Although location, number of bedrooms and other traditional factors achieved higher scores, energy efficiency still achieved a score of 3.7,  with 1 being not at all important and 5 being very important.

One of the most surprising outcomes from the study is illustrated in the chart below.  When asked the question "If the price of an energy-efficient home were £10,000 more than another similar home that was not so energy-efficient, but it offered to save you £750 a year on your energy bills compared to the other home, would you consider paying this?", 69% of people said yes.

The chart also shows the breakdown by age group, with younger (first time) buyers being more likely to be attracted to an energy efficient home.  However, in all age groups the majority would consider paying more for a home that saved them on energy bills.

It is possible that the forthcoming Green Deal will make the value of energy efficiency even more evident to people.  The cost of insulating a solid wall property to achieve performance approaching that of a new home is around £12,000.

People Place More Value on Familiar Technologies

Solar panels (both solar heating and solar electric) and low-energy lighting are the energy saving features with the highest awareness among buyers - 84%.  Awareness falls quickly for other energy generating technologies such as heat pumps - 31% and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) - 17%.

High awareness feeds through into desirability (with the exception of wind turbines).  The chart below shows which eco-features are the most likely to make a new home attractive to a potential purchaser.

Tips for Marketeers

1. Avoid confusing terminology 

People overwhelmingly preferred the term Energy-efficient home to Eco-home, Zero-Carbon home or Green home. Green or Eco was thought to convey the impression of alternative, ultra-modern home with non-traditional materials. Zero carbon causes doubts whether anything can be truly zero-carbon.

Confusing or Negative Associations	More Positively Received
Eco-home Zero-carbon home Green home	Energy efficient home
Air-tight	Draught-free and warm
Grey water recycling	Waste water re-use for toilet flushing
Biomass boiler	Wood chip/pellet burning boiler
Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery	System for introducing fresh air from outside while retaining the heat from expelled air
Solar Thermal	Solar heating
Photovoltaics	Solar electric

2. Emphasise the energy savings

The survey found that people were motivated towards energy efficiency mainly for the positive impact it has on their household finance.  Protecting scarce resouces came second and helping combat climate change came a distant third.

Marketing should emphasise the financial benefits of living in a new home relative to other choices, with simple comparisons that make the savings clear.

The survey showed that people are confused about the sources of CO2 emissions, with many not rating energy use in homes in the top three sources.  Industry, cars, planes and even livestock were often selected ahead of homes. If people were aware that housing accounts for 30% of energy use and more energy is used in housing than in industry, road transport or aviation, this might influence their buying decisions.


3. Choose visible technologies 

A home with visible technolgies such as solar panels gives the sales team a hook on which to hang the many other features (such as higher levels of insulation and draught-proofing) which are not so evident to a buyer viewing a property. 

4. Choose technologies to meet targets that buyers find attractive

Some technologies clearly are more attractive to buyers more than others.  The cheapest option for achieving compliance with building regulations may not be the most attractive to prospective buyers.  Homes with more attractive packages of energy efficiency technology may sell more quickly or achieve higher prices than those that are simply cost-optmised to meet regulations.

5. Consider offering enhanced efficiency as a cost option

When selling off plan it is common to offer better kitchens, or bathrooms or other features at an extra cost.  Why not give the customer the option to increase the energy efficiency of their home beyond regulations to lower their bills further?  For example, meeting regulations with a solar heating system, but offering the option to add a solar electric system alongside.

 

"People won't pay for all this stuff"

House builders often claim that their experience is that people won't pay more for homes with "eco-features".  They might say they will (perhaps to market researchers compiling reports), but when it comes time to sign the cheque they won't spend the money.

But have they really tried to sell efficiency?  Are the sales people knowlegeable about the features and benefits?  Does the marketing material explain the features in simple terms and the benefits in a meaningful way?  Has the package of energy efficiency technology been chosen to appeal to buyers?

Please add your thoughts and comments below.

They Work for you, Don't They?

What's going on in there?

Sometimes it it feels like the UK solar industry believes that the reason for the existence of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is to help solar businesses thrive.  This attitude seems to lead to an industry view that it's only incompetence that drives DECC to  fiddle around with the Feed in Tariff and leaves it unable to get on with implementing a domestic Renewable Heat Incentive.

The bad news for the solar industry is this: DECC doesn't work for you.

Solar industry commentators seeking to  offer their advice to our public servants might do well to take a walk in the shoes of the people on the other side of the table.  What are their goals and motivations?  Perhaps if we take a moment to understand, we would be able to present our aspirations in a way that is more persuasive.

Euro-Vision

The top-level drivers for renewable energy in the UK come from legally binding directives from the European Union (EU).  In response to the Kyoto Protocol, the EU set the so-called 20-20-20 targets.

By 2020 the EU as a whole will:

·         Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% compared to 1990 levels  (UK 16%)

·         Provide at least 20% of energy consumption from renewable energy sources (UK 15%)

·         Reduce primary energy use by 20% through energy efficiency measures

Each national government has been set its own targets such that the EU as a whole meets its overall target.  The UK target where it exists is given in brackets.

Clearly these targets overlap.  For example reducing total energy use will increase the proportion of renewable energy even if this stays at the same absolute level. 

The energy efficiency target has produced a number of directives from the EU on the energy efficiency of products, cogeneration, and the energy performance of buildings.  This last directive requires that all new buildings in the EU should be “Nearly Zero Energy” by the end of 2020.

UK Policy

UK policy must take into account the legally binding obligations that arise from these EU directives. 

In 2008 the UK government introduced the Climate Change Act, the world’s first legally binding targets to reduce carbon emissions (reducing by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 and 34% by 2020).  The 2020 target is more challenging than the EU requirement, but is only a recommendation from the Committee on Climate Change.  The 2050 level is legally binding, although it’s not really clear who gets punished if the target is missed.

In its first report to the European Commission on progress towards the 2020 Renewable Energy Target, DECC lists 45 measures that have been implemented with the goal of achieving the UK target of 15% of energy from renewables.  Among these are:

·         Renewables obligation – payments to large scale renewable electricity generators (e.g. wind farms)

·         Feed in Tariffs – financial incentives for smaller-scale renewable electricity

·         Renewable Heat Incentive – financial incentives for renewable heat generators

·         Building Regulations –new homes to be zero carbon from 2016, non domestic from 2019

·         Electricity Market Reform – Contracts for Difference to pay investors in low-carbon electricity

·         Planning Policy – to encourage renewable energy projects to go ahead

·         Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation – requirement to include biofuel in petrol and diesel

Know Your Place

Clearly solar energy is only a part of the solution to the massive challenge of meeting these targets, but how big a part?

DECC has given a clue to its thinking with its Renewable Energy Roadmap, published in July 2011.  It estimates that 234 TWh per year of renewable energy will be required to hit the 15% target, and proposes the following breakdown as one scenario to meet this:

	Technology	Mid-range estimate
1	Onshore wind	28 TWh
2	Offshore wind	46 TWh
3	Marine energy	1 TWh
4	Biomass electricity	41 TWh
5	Biomass heat	43 TWh
6	Heat pumps (non domestic)	19 TWh
7	Transport	48 TWh
8	Other (domestic, solar)	14 TWh
	Total	240 TWh
	Target	234 TWh

Disappointingly, but perhaps not unexpectedly it can be seen that the government is taking a big-industry, top-down approach to the problem.  Only 6% of the total is expected to come from domestic installations of heat pumps, solar heating and solar pv. 

However, to put this in context, 14 TWh per year from the domestic stream would be met by either:

·         9 million domestic installations of solar water heating

·         6million domestic solar pv installations of 2.8kWp (17 GWp total)

 Even at this level, the challenge is significant and is likely to require attractive and sustained government incentives to support deployment.   DECC’s focus on unpopular technologies that could get bogged down in local planning appeals means that solar pv and solar thermal may have an even bigger role to play in meeting the challenge and underlines the case for urgent progress with the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive.

Reading List

EU 

406/2009/EC:Effort Sharing Decision (20% CO2 reduction by 2020)

2009/28/EC : Directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (20% by 2020)

Proposed: Energy End Use Efficiency Directive (20% reductionby 2020)

2010/31/EU Directive on the energy performance of buildings

UK

Climate Change Act 2008

FirstProgress Report to the European Commission on increasing use of renewable energy UK

UK Renewable Energy Roadmap 

The Best Looking Solar Panels You’ve Never Seen

Perfect Symmetry?

If you are interested in having solar PV (electric) panels, but are discouraged by the effect the installation will have on how your home looks you are not alone. 

The headlong rush to get solar electric systems installed before cuts to the wildly popular government incentive scheme, the Feed-in-Tariff, created a focus on financial returns as the only goal.  A number of Crimes Against Architecture may have been perpetrated.  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, its up to you.  Consider the gallery below.

Exhibit A

Have these installations knocked more off the value of the property than they will ever make in Feed in Tariff profits?  Am I being too harsh?  Let me know what you think - post a comment below.

Got any any better (worse!) photos of solar installations? Send them to me at this email address: thesolarblogger@yahoo.com and I’ll enhance the gallery. Credit given to contributors.

[UPDATE: Thanks to all who have sent photos - I have created an album on Flicker which you can see here]

An arbitrary Feed-In-Tariff banding structure has encouraged people to fit the maximum number of panels possible up to the 4kWp threshold at which the tariff reduces, sometimes with little thought for aesthetics.

Standardised solar installation kits offering a fixed number of of panel numbers further limits the chance of creating a sensitive roof layout.

The good news is that it doesn't have to be this way. There are alternatives available to those who want to reduce their energy use while protecting the appeal of their property.

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way - The Best Solar Panels You’ve Never Seen

The default installation of solar pv is a rack-mounted checkerboard of solar panels mounted above the roof covering.  Due to their ubiquity many people think this is the only option available.

Fortunately for those who want a more harmonious-looking  installation, alternatives  do exist.  So-called integrated solar panels that replace tiles or slates in the roof covering, offering a much neater, low-profile installation.  These can be either tile-format panels where small panels fit into the tiles of the roof, or rectangular panels with a weathertight interface between panels and tiles.

Roof integrated solar panels (left) and solar tiles (right)

Some properties with smaller or awkward roof areas might be better served with a solar heating system. This requires far less roof area than it's electric counterpart, and can also be installed as a roof integrated system.  The forthcoming Renewable Heat Incentive could make this type of solar more popular, and systems installed now will qualify for the incentive once it starts as if installed on the first day of the scheme.

For more examples of roof-integrated solar panels check out the Viridian Solar Gallery.

Peak Toil - Update on UK Photovoltaic Market

Challenge to Business Studies students:


Look at the chart above and write a business plan to create a sustainable long-term business based on photovoltaic solar in the UK.  Your plan must take account of the fact that the spikes are randomly imposed by the actions of the greenest government ever, determined as it is to help the industry by continuously "improving" the Feed-in-Tariff, the grant scheme that creates the demand for your products and services.


This is an update of an earlier chart showing the effects changes to the Feed in Tariff (FIT) have had on installation rates of solar PV in the UK.


Worried that they would over-spend the Treasury budget cap for the FIT, the government announced its intention to cut the subsidy in half from December 2011.  The ensuing rush of installations to get in before the cuts was followed by a second peak at the end of March 2012, as it became clear that the government had acted unlawfully with it's first date, and the new FITs would come in from March 3rd.


A third mini-peak erupted in the run up to April 2012 as another change was made to the FITs requiring that houses should have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) with a rating of D or higher to qualify for the FIT.


Following the third deadline, solar PV installation rates have remained stubbornly low, despite prices for PV having fallen to a level that means the return on investment is apparently similar to that during 2011.


The current Feed in Tariff rates and requirements can be found here.

More Like a Car Than a Computer - Improvements in Solar PV Panel Efficiencies

Hard work if you can get it
How PV solar efficiency has improved over time

My phone has more computing power than it took to put a man on the moon, doesn't it?

Nowadays we take epic rates of improvement in performance and cost for electronic products in our stride.  It's a commonly held belief that the performance of PV solar panels are following a similar trajectory, but what does the reality look like?

Since 1975, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, USA has been plotting the current world's best efficiency for a range of different types of solar photovoltaic cells. The image above is a simplified version of a more detailed chart. I have shown only the three technologies in most common use and added two recent technical developments of great promise.

The efficiency shown here is not what you would expect to achieve from a commercially available solar pv panel, rather from a small, carefully prepared, no-expenses-spared laboratory sample.

The graph tells a story of hard-won gains over long periods of time more akin to the gradual improvements in fuel efficiency in cars than to improvements in computers, LCD televisions and digital cameras.  In the same time scale that rooms full of mainframe computers have shrunk down to fit into you pocket, the efficiency of solar panels has increased from about 14% to about 24%. 

You see, the bad news is that there's a Law's-of-Physics-type-limit to the efficiency of a solar cell and it's only 34% for the single junction technology that most solar panels use.  As you approach this limit the gains get harder and harder to win. You can see that the world record for silicon solar cell efficiency started to flatten off around 1995, polycrystalline around 1998, and that thin film cells are reaching a similar point right about now. 

 

Bright New Stars

Two exciting technology developments that have the potential to drive future improvements are organic cells and multi-junction thin film cells.

Organic cells are made from plastic photovoltaic materials, with the benefits of low cost and simple manufacturing processes that such materials bring. As can be seen in the graph, these new materials are just starting out, with low but rapidly rising efficiencies. They are quickly approaching the point where interesting applications will emerge - for example where the larger areas needed for the same power output are not a disadvantage, or the shapes that can be formed are important.

Multi-junction thin film cells sidestep the efficiency limit of conventional solar cells. Layers of photovoltaic material are stacked one on top of the other, each tuned to a different wavelength of light.  As light travels through the stack, each layer slices out the energy associated with the colour of light to which it is tuned.  The theoretical limit to efficiency for such a cell jumps to 64%.  Laboratory samples have already broken through the efficiency limit for a single layer cell.

There's good reason to be optimistic that further progress can be made in PV technology, just remember that today's laboratory record-breaking material can take many years to find its way into proven, real-world products.

Coming out of the Shade - Will the Renewable Heat Incentive Provide a Much Needed Boost for Solar Thermal in the UK?

While the Feed in Tariff has been grabbing all the headlines, the government has quietly launched a similar cash-back scheme for solar heating in commercial applications, but where are the best opportunities?

At the end of 2011 photovoltaic solar energy was hardly out of the news, with legal challenges to the government’s management of the Feed in Tariff and a dash to install before tariff levels dropped.  Among all of this, it would have been easy to miss the fact that the government has launched a similar cash-back scheme for renewable heat technologies, including solar thermal.

The Renewable Heat Incentive

This solar heating installation for an Extracare building
would qualify for the Renewable Heat Incentive

Launched in November 2011, the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is aimed at all buildings with installations of solar heating with the exception of single domestic premises.  It currently pays the owner of the solar system 8.9 pence per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of heat generated, with the tariff index-linked for the duration of the scheme.  The owner can claim the cash-back every quarter for 20 years from the date of registration.


Read a more detailed briefing on the scheme here.

Eligible buildings include commercial properties or groups of houses or apartments served by a single communal solar system.  Domestic buildings are intended to come under the scheme during summer 2013, with a consultation expected this September.

Where are the Opportunities?

Any building that has a need for hot water is an opportunity for solar thermal, but some are more attractive than others.  These include:

Residential

Accommodation for students at universities, junior staff at hospitals and pupils at boarding schools often have a centralised plant room where water is heated for distribution around the building.  It can be relatively straightforward to install a solar buffer tank to pre-heat the water for the existing heating system.  Sheltered accommodation and Extracare buildings are often heated in the same way, and if residents are assisted to bathe during the working day, then a smaller solar buffer tank can be used.

Apartment blocks can pose a more difficult challenge to the integration of solar water heating, especially if each apartment has its own individual heating system.  However solar heating systems which generate heat from a communal solar array and transfer it to hot water cylinders in individual apartments via a distribution ring are possible (see case study).

Leisure

Hotels often have a high water demand, and if the occupancy of holiday accommodation is seasonally biased towards the summer months, then the effectiveness of a solar system can be higher due to supply matching demand.

Swimming pools are an excellent application for solar heating because the low demand temperature means the solar panels work at maximum efficiency.  Coupled to this, the large thermal capacity of the pool allows the full use of energy on sunny days, where storage capacity might limit the energy collection for a domestic hot water system.

Health Care

Hospitals and surgeries can have a high demand for hot water and centralised water heating systems, making for a more convenient retro-fit.

Industrial Process Heat

Industrial process heat represents a massive opportunity to deploy solar heating.  See earlier blog post: An Untapped Opportunity

With the advent of the Renewable Heat Incentive, the stage is set for heating companies to help their customers cost-effectively reduce fossil fuel use in a wide range of commercial heating applications.

An Untapped Opportunity? - Solar Thermal for Industrial Process Heat

An EU research programme, So-Pro, has identified the enormous opportunity to utilize solar heating in industrial applications.  Many national markets across the EU boast levels of solar thermal deployment in residential buildings that leave the UK far behind (see earlier blog), but when it comes to industrial applications, we’re all absolute beginners.

The UK’s Renewable Heat Incentive is the first scheme of its kind in the world, and could act as a real driver for businesses that use heat in their industrial processes to consider using solar thermal to reduce their dependence on fossil fuel energy, save on bills and get cash-back from the government at the same time.

So-Pro estimates that 30% of total industrial heat demand is at temperatures below 100°C, and may therefore be suitable for solar heating.  The programme highlights a number of case studies where solar energy was successfully deployed in an industrial setting:

·         Food Industry

A producer of dried meat in Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain installed a 250 m² solar thermal array to heat 30,000 litres of hot water storage for washing processes in production, and for cleaning of vessels and machinery. 

·         Metal Processing

An electroplating company in Rahden, Germany installed a 220 m² solar array to support the heating of the galvanising baths to 80°C.

·         Drying

A brewery in Neumarkt, Germany installed a 72m² solar array to preheat air for drying processes in the malt house.

·         Washing

A specialised truck washing company in Villamuriel de Cerrato, Spain installed a solar thermal system of 140m² to heat water for washing tankers used to transport chemicals, food and industrial oils.

·         Preheating Steam Make-up Water

A laundry in Marburg, Germany installed a 57 m² solar system to raise the temperature of make-up water feeding two gas-fired steam boilers.

The successful implementation of these bespoke renewable energy installations were found to require close cooperation between M&E contractors with a detailed understanding of their customers’ heating processes and technically competent solar suppliers or installers that could ensure the design achieved efficient use of the solar technology.

With the advent of the Renewable Heat Incentive, the stage is set for heating companies to help their customers cost-effectively reduce fossil fuel use in a wide range of commercial heating applications. 

To find out whether your application for industrial process heat may be suitable for solar heating, try this checklist of questions