Heating and cooling

11-06-08

A heat strategy is now expected to be produced in draft form in the autumn of 2008, and there has already been a joint call for evidence from three government departments - BERR, the CLG and Defra - to pave the way for this.

In particular, this call for evidence sought views on how to break down the barriers to renewable heat, what technologies might be available to foster more renewable heat systems, and how to make existing heat systems more efficient.

Among sample technologies cited within the call for evidence were:

• Insulation
• Ground source heat pumps
• Biomass boilers
• Solar hot water
• CHP district heating
• Renewable district heating
• District heating with remote heat supply
• Micro-CHP
• De-carbonised electricity

The call for evidence also asked how the government might provide incentives to promote the use of more renewable heat, since heat is not included in existing schemes like the Renewables Obligation, which for the most part only rewards renewable electricity production (although it does encourage the use of heat through good quality CHP schemes).

Among suggestions for incentives were further capital grants, a feed-in tariff system, which would reward production of renewable heat for every unit of energy produced, and a renewable heat obligation similar to the current RO.

Cooling is rewarded with only a small part of the call for evidence on heat, with the government predicting a much smaller energy demand from space cooling and air-conditioning by 2020 than the nation's heat demand - 20TWh per year compared to the anticipated 689 TWh per year for heating.

As well as the Heat Strategy, heat is also to be included within the forthcoming Renewable Energy Strategy 2009, a major document which is expected to set out the government's long-term plans for developing renewable energy in the UK in the light of recent developments in European legislation.