Interesting that they even want to abolish the carbon emissions metric to evaluate actual degree of success of their regulations. A tacit admission that even for their supposed Net Zero goal, their plan has been a failure. So they don't want us to see that fact.
All of these "Energy Efficiency" programs are obvious scams because they never use the proper metric to evaluate them, which is the full lifecycle $/ton GHG emissions avoided. If they REALLY cared about Climate Change (hint:they don't), they would examine each of the dozens of methods in that metric, and for whatever method when installed & operating, publish that true value of performance.
And then if any of them were actually concerned about Climate Change, the only rational method would be the "low hanging fruit" approach. Focus the limited amount of capital available on the methods that give the biggest carbon reduction for the lowest price. Including a few carbon sequestration methods, namely tree planting and ocean fertilization. And especially including eliminating wasteful, inefficient and extravagant methods. And properly evaluating carbon emissions, not using scam nonsense like declaring biomass burning "carbon neutral".
By that rational method, forget about building energy efficiency for existing structures, possibly some for new buildings.
Do stop the incredible waste of agrofuel production. A total expensive failure.
Replace biomass burning with biomass --> methanol fuel. Especially using wildfire causing forest overgrowth. A low emissions replacement for vehicle fuel.
Stop building horrendously inefficient, ineffective wind, solar & utility battery storage. Instead build NPPs, lots of them, factory produced SMRs especially. And quit building EPRs.
There should be GPCs ( Government Performance Certificates) done on the government every month - see how that sits with the overpaid control freaks in it.
The potential of remote control of energy use is an ominous threat to individual liberty and an equally ominous step towards totalitarianism.
As for installing heat pumps, insulation, rewiring, etc in old houses - when I used to fix up houses and resell them, sometimes it made more sense to bulldoze the old house and build new from scratch. We had a saying in real estate: Even if you gold plate a dog, it's still a dog.
Further thanks David: I spent time going through the EPC consultation, of which I would have been completely unaware but for you, and submitted a response. I found the document and the questions displayed the mixture of misplaced good intentions and lack of clarity from HM government that you have been reporting to your subscribers for some time.
I thoroughly commend the effort you put in David, it must take days and days of research and then all the compiling into a coherent article. You are doing a real service for the people of these beleaguered isles, although many won't have recognised the trap we are all in!
This Net Zero madness has to be a deliberate attempt to wreck our society, period.
A much less troublesome control freakery was imposed here in Scotland a few years ago, namely that house fire alarms must be interlinked such that if one goes off, they all go off. These alarms are ear-splittingly loud so can easily he heard from the most remote part of a typical house. I’ve declined to comply but it could be an irritation when the house is eventually sold. I would take the same approach with any EPC imposition.
When will our politicians wake up and realise that Donald Trump has forced them into a completely new epoch of history? He and his MAGA team are working at breakneck speed to dismantle the USA deep state which has been key to sustaining skulduggeries like the climate change scam, the Covid plandemic and the deliberately-provoked war in Ukraine. He dismisses man-made global warming as a “hoax” and has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement and next the UN IPCC.
Thank you David for bringing this to our attention, with much to follow up. I believe EPCs have long lacked credibility, but also expect them to be replaced with something unwieldy and unworkable, which will fall by the wayside or be swept aside by the inevitable backlash to state authoritarianism. It seems to me it would be simpler and more direct for a property buyer to have access (if desired) to the previous year's energy bills, as one important if imperfect benchmark.
We are in the UK caught in a particularly nasty position of high energy costs and housing stock, much of which was designed around cheap coal, that is dismally insulated. Since it is perfectly possible to build energy efficient homes, the long payback times for retrofit measures, shown in the figure, are dispiriting. This state of things was remarked on to me by a Finnish lady resident in north Wales: "People ask me 'but isn't it cold in Finland?', to which I reply 'OUTSIDE, yes'".
All this noted, for the last decade of what I laughingly refer to as a career, until I retired nearly six years ago, I worked as a self-employed gas and heating engineer in the relatively prosperous south-east of England. I was disappointed with an almost total absence of interest in system efficiency. I've often wondered whether it would be different today, given what's happened to energy prices.
Surely the increased risk of blackouts/enforced energy saving means a resilience measure is merited. One where a wood burner would allow a backup heat source (batteries are no good for backup heat but provides other resilience). Also a wood burner, if burning sustainably sourced wood, is net zero emissions.
Hang em high
Interesting that they even want to abolish the carbon emissions metric to evaluate actual degree of success of their regulations. A tacit admission that even for their supposed Net Zero goal, their plan has been a failure. So they don't want us to see that fact.
All of these "Energy Efficiency" programs are obvious scams because they never use the proper metric to evaluate them, which is the full lifecycle $/ton GHG emissions avoided. If they REALLY cared about Climate Change (hint:they don't), they would examine each of the dozens of methods in that metric, and for whatever method when installed & operating, publish that true value of performance.
And then if any of them were actually concerned about Climate Change, the only rational method would be the "low hanging fruit" approach. Focus the limited amount of capital available on the methods that give the biggest carbon reduction for the lowest price. Including a few carbon sequestration methods, namely tree planting and ocean fertilization. And especially including eliminating wasteful, inefficient and extravagant methods. And properly evaluating carbon emissions, not using scam nonsense like declaring biomass burning "carbon neutral".
By that rational method, forget about building energy efficiency for existing structures, possibly some for new buildings.
Do stop the incredible waste of agrofuel production. A total expensive failure.
Replace biomass burning with biomass --> methanol fuel. Especially using wildfire causing forest overgrowth. A low emissions replacement for vehicle fuel.
Stop building horrendously inefficient, ineffective wind, solar & utility battery storage. Instead build NPPs, lots of them, factory produced SMRs especially. And quit building EPRs.
There should be GPCs ( Government Performance Certificates) done on the government every month - see how that sits with the overpaid control freaks in it.
The potential of remote control of energy use is an ominous threat to individual liberty and an equally ominous step towards totalitarianism.
As for installing heat pumps, insulation, rewiring, etc in old houses - when I used to fix up houses and resell them, sometimes it made more sense to bulldoze the old house and build new from scratch. We had a saying in real estate: Even if you gold plate a dog, it's still a dog.
Further thanks David: I spent time going through the EPC consultation, of which I would have been completely unaware but for you, and submitted a response. I found the document and the questions displayed the mixture of misplaced good intentions and lack of clarity from HM government that you have been reporting to your subscribers for some time.
Collating SMETERS data would amount to a huge invasion of privacy. It should only be done with the written consent of those surveilled.
I thoroughly commend the effort you put in David, it must take days and days of research and then all the compiling into a coherent article. You are doing a real service for the people of these beleaguered isles, although many won't have recognised the trap we are all in!
This Net Zero madness has to be a deliberate attempt to wreck our society, period.
...and, it's working.
David,
Site energy basis hides a multitude of issues. Source energy basis looks bad with continued fossil and Drax generation and even "badder' with CCS.
https://open.substack.com/pub/iainhunter/p/the-grand-solar-minimum-is-here?r=127bdu&utm_medium=ios
This post and the Tom Nelson podcast linked from it are well worth reading
/ listening to. As it suggests, at least listen to the conclusion at around 59’.
We are going to need gas and diesel.
When I worked for a Housing Charity, we had to get EPCs done for all our properties.
They were more useless than a useless thing in a Uselessness Competition.
Great for those who got paid for producing meaningless and useless pieces of paper.
Big brother is watching YOU!
A much less troublesome control freakery was imposed here in Scotland a few years ago, namely that house fire alarms must be interlinked such that if one goes off, they all go off. These alarms are ear-splittingly loud so can easily he heard from the most remote part of a typical house. I’ve declined to comply but it could be an irritation when the house is eventually sold. I would take the same approach with any EPC imposition.
When are these politicians going to accept that there is no point whatsoever in trying to reduce “carbon” emissions? Here’s a good exposure of how little climate change nutter Biden with $hundreds of billions at his disposal achieved in “tackling the climate crisis” in his four years as President: https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-1-19-report-how-did-the-biden-administration-do-on-solving-climate-change.
When will our politicians wake up and realise that Donald Trump has forced them into a completely new epoch of history? He and his MAGA team are working at breakneck speed to dismantle the USA deep state which has been key to sustaining skulduggeries like the climate change scam, the Covid plandemic and the deliberately-provoked war in Ukraine. He dismisses man-made global warming as a “hoax” and has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement and next the UN IPCC.
Our Net Zero-obsessed, mRNA vax-obsessed, Ukraine-warmongering Uniparty politicians need to come to their senses and face up to the new reality: https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/american-strong-gods.
Reform have stated that they intend to scrap EPCs if elected in 2029. Hopefully this will happen.
Thank you David for bringing this to our attention, with much to follow up. I believe EPCs have long lacked credibility, but also expect them to be replaced with something unwieldy and unworkable, which will fall by the wayside or be swept aside by the inevitable backlash to state authoritarianism. It seems to me it would be simpler and more direct for a property buyer to have access (if desired) to the previous year's energy bills, as one important if imperfect benchmark.
We are in the UK caught in a particularly nasty position of high energy costs and housing stock, much of which was designed around cheap coal, that is dismally insulated. Since it is perfectly possible to build energy efficient homes, the long payback times for retrofit measures, shown in the figure, are dispiriting. This state of things was remarked on to me by a Finnish lady resident in north Wales: "People ask me 'but isn't it cold in Finland?', to which I reply 'OUTSIDE, yes'".
All this noted, for the last decade of what I laughingly refer to as a career, until I retired nearly six years ago, I worked as a self-employed gas and heating engineer in the relatively prosperous south-east of England. I was disappointed with an almost total absence of interest in system efficiency. I've often wondered whether it would be different today, given what's happened to energy prices.
Surely the increased risk of blackouts/enforced energy saving means a resilience measure is merited. One where a wood burner would allow a backup heat source (batteries are no good for backup heat but provides other resilience). Also a wood burner, if burning sustainably sourced wood, is net zero emissions.
EPCs have long needed revision and the proposals make perfect sense to me
We run our heat pump mainly at night for 8 p/kWh and the building fabric lets us coast through the day
I agree that EPCs are not fit for purpose. Kathryn Porter dissected their inadequacies and the failings of policy in a 3 part blog starting here
https://watt-logic.com/2021/01/27/building-energy-performance-epc/
It really should be compulsory reading for those meddling in the policy.