UK decision earns praise

Jimboomba Times
23/05/2007 Page: 69

BY 2016, all new homes built in the United Kingdom will be zero emission on heating and cooling. The UK Government's Code for Sustainable Homes legislates binding regulations for energy reduction with staggered targets. These are 20 per cent more efficient by 2010, 44 per cent by 2013, and 100 per cent, or zero emissions by 2016. Now passed into law, the code sets minimum standards for energy and water efficiency.

In addition, the UK government has agreed that any home achieving Level Six sustainability rating will be exempt from stamp duty. "The UK government has made a groundbreaking decision," said Matthew Wright, spokesman for Beyond Zero Emissions. "By 2050, 70 per cent of homes in the UK will be zero emissions. "Here is a government with a vision for the future, willing to take rapid and affirmative actions to combat climate change. "The Australian government is ignoring its responsibility to safeguard our country."

Companies from the UK and abroad are already building homes compliant with the 2016 code, some with cost increases of only two per cent more than similar traditionally built homes. Stuart Milne runs the largest housing company in Scotland and is offering for sale a zero emissions home available off plan. He has released a house autonomously warmed and cooled with the assistance of a substance called Energain. Installed on the interior walls and ceilings of the home, coated panels absorb and release heat depending on the temperature, reducing any need for energy intensive air conditioning or heating.

"These are homes that need no heating whatsoever, even through extreme UK winters;" Mr Wright said. "Using intelligent and natural design, homes are prefabricated with insulation, economically creating a more comfortable and liveable environment. "The increase in cost is marginal, which is comprehensively offset through massive savings in energy bills." A home constructed by the company Osborne has virtually no energy consumption requirements.

The house contains a mechanical heat recovery system which removes moist, stale air from rooms and passes it over cool, fresh air from outside to regulate constant comfortable air temperatures. "With the addition of solar panels and wind turbines, homes in the near future will be entirely self-sufficient, generating electricity on-site," said Mr. Wright. "Australians now need to put pressure on our federal government to adopt these simple conservative measures in line with what one of the leading economies in the world is doing. As a country and as a planet, we need to become zero emissions across all sectors as soon as possible."

The latest report (commissioned by the Victorian Government) from the CSIRO warns of blackouts by 2030 caused by increased use of air conditioning and climate related infrastructure failure. If all houses by 2016 are built to zero emission standards, not requiring air conditioning, then this will lessen the effects of more severe weather that is forecast from human forced global warming.