The Office of the Deputy Prime Mininster recently published its final report on low or zero carbon energy sources and controversially concludes that no LZC technologies are cost-effective and hence they should not be considered for mandatory inclusion in part L of the building regulations.
The website provides full details on the calculations used and you can even download the spreadsheet to play around with the figures for yourself. While I don’t really agree with their numbers (electricity prices not going to rise in the next 25 years?!), at least the numbers are there for inspection. Points scored for openness in government, right?
Maybe not. The report also states:
It is recommended that the cost-effectiveness assessments are not made available as part of any consultation exercise since they have served their purpose within this report and could easily be misinterpreted outside the context this purpose.
In other words, any debates about possible policies based on these calculations shouldn’t be able to challenge the underlying figures. Very disappointing – the UK desperately needs a serious debate about low energy housing and this report seems to designed to ensure as little change as possible.
