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Energy Efficiency (S&T Report)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, for initiating this excellent debate. I also thank our clerk for preparing a report that is actually a readable tome. You can sit down and digest it. I have read many reports on this subject and it is clear that many people are deft at managing to avoid that. I, too, am one of those who think it is unfortunate that transport was not added to this report, although I understand that it would then have been about three times as long. However, this morning while bicycling my son to school—obviously I take the moral high ground in this debate—I counted the number of gee whiz electric cars on the road. It is a great sight to see because they reduce emissions. However, the problem is that you cannot consider them without an integrated policy. Electric cars draw their energy from the grid. That is a problem and is why they are frowned on in Germany. If brown coal has to be burnt in Germany to produce electricity to power such cars, the resulting CO2 emissions are seen as almost worse than petrol. That shows how difficult it is to favour one source of power over another. The report clearly states that in dealing with the first issue, which is of measurement. As we have just heard, the metering of electricity is almost a dark art. What you are charged may have no relevance whatever to what actually goes through your local system. Therefore when we talk of kilowatt hours and other measurements, perhaps we should move towards what I believe will become accepted over the next few years: energy efficiency based on grams of CO&2sub ;emitted to produce each kilowatt of power from source through to use. This is important, of course, because most people forget that 60 per cent of initial energy input is lost in generation in the grid before it reaches the home, and then an estimated 13 per cent is further lost through wastage of energy. This issue was raised in the debate last Thursday, when many noble Lords failed to mention energy efficiency at all—I was the only one to raise the matter—because at the moment, of course, the energy debate is based around the provision of nuclear. This is worrying because it gives the impression that, through the generation of nuclear energy, we will produce enough energy not to have to worry about energy efficiency, which of course is not the case. Being on the board of Carbon Neutral North East, I have a great deal of interest in how far up the political agenda the issue of climate change is growing and the amount of recent understanding about the link between our profligate use of energy and climate change. Of course, for my generation, unregulated use of electricity is seen almost as a human right. Last Easter, I had some friends with me at home in Northumberland when there was a power cut. There was almost a note of panic in people’s voices: ““What are we going to do without electricity; without the lights being switched on?””. That is an interesting concept for those of us who have lived in other countries where there is no power grid and you either have to turn on a generator or do without electricity altogether. There seems to be a lack of understanding that people could use less electricity. A classic example of this is in the area of lighting. I have tried very hard to get people to change to low-energy light bulbs. The classic answer is, ““Oh, I do not like the light””. Well, Philips make a fabulous new light bulb; it is soft glow, gives a very good light, lasts for six years—so you do not have to change your light bulb every year—and you can buy them in John Lewis for £3.95. Most people will say that that is an outrageous plug, but it is important that people realise they are cheap and easy. These light bulbs actually look like normal light bulbs, and therefore people walking into a room will not feel that there is something strange in there. This is an important point because research carried out by Carbon Neutral North East has found that while people will buy energy-saving light bulbs, they will then stick them under the sink—or wherever they keep spare light bulbs—in case of emergency and feel that they are contributing to energy saving by doing so. It is a question of educating people to use these things. I recently renovated my kitchen—well, I say that; my wife forced me into buying a new kitchen. If anyone has been in that position, they know it is a very expensive undertaking. The kitchen was designed and the kitchen designer then discussed the light fittings and how many there should be. At that point I stepped in and said, ““No, I am afraid that is not what I am going to do””. I took his plans and worked out that the lights he was suggesting for a small kitchen would have used 1.5 kilowatts in energy consumption. I immediately ripped out the three-way spotlights, each of 100 watts, that were in the kitchen and replaced them with two 20-watt energy-efficient light bulbs. I believe that the difference in the light given off is marginal. It seems almost as though we are driven by a consumer culture; that we must have transformers driving vast numbers of halogen bulbs and lighting up the underside of every single kitchen area. I have been to my friends’ house, where they had had a kitchen put in which even had lights in the floor. It seems to me that that could be a health hazard if young children were to stand on the lights after they had been on all day. Another issue is the standby facility. Noble Lords have mentioned it, but we should put it into context. It has been calculated that 10 per cent of our generating capacity is used in standby. I hope that the Government will be pressing manufacturers to sign up to the 1 watt standby convention, whereby all standby facilities should use only 1 watt. The fire authorities have said that standby is a fire issue; fires have been caused and lives lost through people leaving on the video recorder stacked on top of the DVD, stacked on top of the television, all on standby, over the summer when they are away. Energy saving is a real issue. The report highlights how white goods should be labelled. This is particularly important because there is the horrendous move to digital TV, where everybody has gone out and bought a digital TV box—one more item to add to the other systems in the house. I admit that I have bought a digital TV box because of CBeebies. If you have children, you will understand. But I was amazed when I then looked at the box to find out how much power it was using, and I did some research into it. Some of these boxes use almost as much power on standby as they do in operation. They are generating heat the whole time and there is no way of finding out how much power they are using. It should be clearly stated; that would be a market incentive when manufacturers consider which product to bring out. The guidelines should be much clearer and much tougher. The report discusses fridges and freezers, moving from the A rating to the A++ rating or the AAA rating. I find it interesting that imported large stand-up fridge-freezers, with a fridge on one side and a freezer on the other, should get an A rating. When you open the door of a stand-up freezer, cold air will automatically fall out. I believe that only box freezers should have an A rating. It may seem like a small point, but every time you open the freezer, there is a real energy requirement to replace that cold air. I have two quick questions for the Minister. I do not think he will be able to answer them this evening but I hope he can write to me. I confess that I thought the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, would answer the debate; this shows that there might be a degree of misunderstanding about certain issues. I believe that there should be a ministry that encompasses all energy issues; the divide between Defra, the DTI and the ODPM is causing confusion and problems, and one of my questions relates specifically to the divide. I recently introduced a Private Member’s Bill on dynamic demand devices. These are not sex toys as somebody once guessed, but chips which go in your fridge and listen to the background hum of the grid. The grid is stressed at times of peak use—at half-time of the World Cup final, say, when everybody puts their kettle on—which leads to a spike. I did not realise that it is not just a question of putting the kettle on but of flushing the loo at the same time: the mechanical energy of shifting billions of gallons of water around the country causes a larger proportion of the peak use than putting on kettles. At such a stress point on the grid, the chip would switch off your fridge, freezer or air-conditioning unit. Using such a device on millions of fridges for only that short time would avoid using one of the power stations that is on standby to meet the demand. In the Climate Change Bill which is going through another place and which should come to us shortly, the DTI has taken responsibility for the background research to prove that this is a workable proposition. Industry already says that it will spend money on working out how to insert the chips into fridges and freezers. However, at meetings between the DTI and those pushing for dynamic demand, no indication was given of how much money would be made available to pay for this background research. It said that we could apply for funding in July and that it might come through in December. This technology could save between 0.6 and 1.2 million tonnes of carbon a year. If that is the case, should there not be some urgency in finding the money in the DTI to meet that funding? I hope that the Minister can give me some indication of the position. My second question relates to a micro-generating technology in which I am interested. Solar thermal panels, which take heat from the roof and dump it in your hot water tank, are a growing technology, and they will become increasingly important. I was contacted by a company called Solar Twin, which has introduced a new design technology for making this appliance work. However, it has been left out of Part L of the ODPM’s building regulations. Unless a technology is covered by those regulations, it is illegal for a builder to fit it. Therefore, new technologies are being denied access to the marketplace. I hope that the Minister will consult with the ODPM and come up with a reason why this new technology has not been covered in the regulations. I have taken far too much time at this time of the evening. We are probably the only Members in the House on a Thursday evening, so I will end on the important topic of education. Energy efficiency is about education and about making people understand how important it is. I understand that Defra’s climate change programme is supplying money for projects around the country to increase education. I was very interested to read in the report about how energy is wasted on the parliamentary estate. At about the same time, I visited Black Rod to talk about energy efficiency in the building. He said that one can break down energy efficiency into three areas in a building such as this. The first area is the fabric of the building, to which as much is being done as is possible in a Grade I listed building. The second is the systems that are in place, such as fitting energy-saving light bulbs around the building. That seems to have taken off in the past year or two. The third element, which was left out of the report, is something over which Black Rod has no control; that is, how Peers use electricity and how they use resources. We are all guilty. Walking around the building, I have been amazed by how almost every office one goes into has the lights on. Most offices have left-on computers. Screensavers do not save electricity, but people leave computers on the whole time. We on these Benches have discussed this matter and will put around a paper to all our Members about switching the lights off. I hope that we can then talk to other party groups about implementing it among all Peers. An individual effort will have to be undertaken by each Peer. However, it should be stated on the boxes even of energy-saving light bulbs that the most efficient light bulb is one that, when it is not being used, is turned off.