Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. My amendment is directed at commercial premises. When I stand on the top of the Downs above Eastbourne and look down, I see several hundred acres of white commercial roofs and associated car parks, and there is, I think, one building in that lot which has solar panels on. The reasons for this are entirely structural; they are to do with the difficulties of negotiating between the people using the building, the people who own it and the people who want to handle the electricity that is generated.

I supported the carrot in the Energy Bill—the local energy proposals—to try to get things going and give people a decent price for the energy they are generating. However, we cannot leave commercial spaces untouched if we are to take solar seriously. It is ridiculous to cover farmland with solar panels when industrial roofs and car parks are going uncovered. A carrot having been proposed in the Energy Bill, this is my proposal for a stick. This is something to enable local authorities to get things moving, and to give local landlords and building occupiers a real incentive to come on board a scheme.

After all, these premises are the places where electricity is used in the middle of a sunny day, so they ought to have solar panels to supply directly the energy they need for freezers, charging visiting cars or whatever else. They are the big energy users in the middle of the day, and they ought to have solar panels, and we ought to be pushing that.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, I should declare my interest as a director of Peers for the Planet. I shall address the two amendments in my name. I strongly support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, but, in the interests of time, I shall limit my remarks on them.

Residential and commercial buildings together contribute about 25% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, and figures from the Climate Change Committee tell us that the UK has more than 2.5 million homes and another 1.9 million other buildings—offices, hospitals, shops, et cetera. The majority of those are heated by gas boilers, which also provide hot water, and the bulk of the rest use petroleum.

The Climate Change Committee also tells us that we cannot reach net zero if we continue to use gas for heat, so changing how we heat our homes and buildings is essential to reach net zero. Ending our reliance on gas can also help to reduce the cost of living through lower energy bills—something that should give us all pause for thought during debates on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, and I know it has already been mentioned by several speakers. When we add to that the estimated quarter of a million extra jobs that will be needed, relevance to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill just increases.

The Government should be given credit for introducing the future homes standard, which aims to ensure that new homes built before 2025 will produce 75% to 80% less carbon emissions than homes built under the current building regulations. The heat and buildings strategy states that from 2025 gas boilers will be banned from all new buildings and from 2035 boilers will start to be phased out from existing buildings. As far as we know, that is still the Government’s plan.

The question then is: what will replace gas boilers? My Amendments 504GJK and 504GJL are asking the Government to apply a bit of scientific rigour to answer that question and to be guided by objective evidence as we take these momentous decisions on major changes to our infrastructure that will be with us for the next several generations.

The facts are that there are plans for a hydrogen village pilot. There has already been a heat pump pilot, albeit nearly all air source, which is different and has been shown to be 40% less energy efficient than ground source heat pumps. There have also been various central plant district heating demonstrator projects. That is all excellent, and to be applauded, but there is no plan to pilot networked ground source heat pumps, and that is a gaping gap. A demonstrator pilot is sorely needed, because although networked heat pumps have plenty in common with individual heat pumps and with district heating, and often get lumped in with one or the other, the reality is that networked heat pumps is a very different approach and need to be assessed and evaluated on its own merits.

What is it? A ground source heat pump—which I shall refer to as a GSHP—network works by installing shared network pipework containing water for multiple homes to connect to, as opposed to each home needing the space for its individual ground source heat pump. The under-street network absorbs heat from the ground at a near constant year-round 10 degrees centigrade, and applies it to each home’s heat pump, where it is condensed and increased to the heat required for space heating and hot water. It is worth noting here that in most homes, the heat pump unit will be smaller than a gas boiler.

In a GSHP network, the infrastructure is owned and paid for by a third party, with each home paying an annual fixed network fee. The best way to think about a GSHP network is that the infrastructure reflects the gas grids we currently have, which are owned by utilities, and we would in the same way pay to connect to a heat network. Ground source heat pump networks have the potential to reach parts that other heating solutions cannot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 478 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, would require new homes and buildings in England to have solar panels as of April 2025. I acknowledge straight away that the spirit of this amendment is unimpeachable. Renewable energy, such as that generated from solar panels, is a key part of our strategy to get to net zero.

We should be aiming to see new homes and buildings built in a way that contributes to the net-zero agenda. The difference between the Government and the noble Baroness, in working towards that aim, is one of approach. I am sure she will recall that the Government introduced an uplift in energy-efficiency standards, which came into force in June 2022. The purpose of the uplift is to deliver a meaningful reduction in carbon emissions. Critically, though, it also provides a stepping stone to the future homes and buildings standards, which we are aiming to legislate for next year and which would come into force in 2025.

It is important to understand that our approach to achieving higher energy-efficiency standards has remained consistent—that is to say technology neutral—to provide developers with the flexibility to innovate and choose the most appropriate and cost-effective solutions for their sites. Some buildings may not be suitable for solar panels—for instance, homes that are heavily shaded due to nearby buildings or trees, or where the roof size or shape does not lend itself to solar panels. We fully expect, however, that to comply with the uplift, most developers will choose to install solar panels on new homes and buildings or use other low-carbon technology such as a heat pump. Introducing an amendment to mandate solar panels would therefore be largely redundant. I hope that is helpful in explaining why we do not think that this amendment is the right way to go.

I turn to Amendment 504GJE in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. This looks to allow local planning authorities to request the installation of solar panels on roofs of commercial buildings and adjoining spaces in a designated area. I am sure that we can agree that decarbonising our energy supply is one of the greatest challenges of our generation. I am not, however, convinced that giving local planning authorities powers effectively to require commercial property landowners and tenants to fit solar panels to their existing buildings and facilities is the best way to achieve this. Not all commercial landowners or tenants will be in the position to take action.

Instead, we should focus on empowering those who have the means to do so by ensuring that planning and building regulations are not a barrier. That is why we have policies in the National Planning Policy Framework, as well as permitted development rights and building standards, that support the rollout of renewable energy, including installing solar panels. The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that local planning authorities should have a positive strategy in place to promote energy from renewable and low-carbon sources, such as solar panels. The NPPF is also clear that when determining planning applications for renewable and low carbon development, local planning authorities should approve the application if its impacts are, or can be made, acceptable. This can include the installation of solar panels.

To help facilitate the take-up of renewable energy, permitted development rights allow for the installation of rooftop solar and stand-alone ground-mounted solar in the grounds of domestic and non-domestic buildings. The Government have recently consulted on changes to the permitted development rights for solar equipment to support the solar energy objectives set out in the British energy security strategy. The consultation included proposals to amend the existing permitted development right for the installation of rooftop solar on commercial buildings and introduce a new permitted development right for solar canopies on non-domestic car parks, such as supermarkets and retail parks. The department is now considering the responses and further details will be announced in due course.

It is also worth my reverting to the point I made in response to Amendment 478. The energy efficiency changes to the building regulations that the Government recently implemented, and which came into force in June 2022, will mean that to comply with these new standards many, if not most, developers will choose to install solar panels on new commercial buildings. So, again, while I have some overall sympathy with my noble friend in bringing forward his amendment, given all that I have laid out I hope he will understand why the Government do not feel able to support it.

I listened with much interest to the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan. Her Amendment 504GJK proposes to create a new pilot scheme to retrofit an existing town, powered by renewable energy and heated by a ground source heat network. I am happy to bring the Committee up to date on where we are with this area of policy more generally.

The Government’s general approach to the transition to clean heat is to follow natural replacement cycles, working with the grain of markets and consumer behaviour to minimise costs and disruption and avoid early appliance scrappage. On heat network zoning specifically, the Energy White Paper, heat and buildings strategy and net zero strategy committed us to introduce heat network zoning in England by 2025. It is a key policy solution to help reach the scale of expansion of heat networks required to meet net zero.

The zoning policy will be delivered via powers in the Energy Bill to make regulations, including in relation to the development of a nationwide methodology for identifying and designating areas as heat network zones. The objective of the methodology will be to determine where heat networks are lower cost than low-carbon alternatives in an area. Incidentally, to answer a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, there is a difference between heat network zoning and converting an area to hydrogen heating. Unlike technologies such as community renewables and heat networks, using 100% hydrogen for heating is not yet an established technology.

Given the existing work under way and the Government’s general approach to the transition to clean heat, we do not believe the proposal for a pilot will deliver additional value.

Similarly, Amendment 504GJL proposes to create a pilot scheme to construct a new town powered by renewable energy and heated by a ground source heat network. I am afraid the Government do not believe that this proposal will deliver benefits additional to those already in prospect. From 2025, the future homes standard will ensure that all new homes are net-zero ready, meaning that they will become zero carbon when the electricity grid decarbonises without the need for any retrofit work. So, although the Government cannot support these last two amendments, I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, will take some encouragement from the work and plans that are already under way.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I am not convinced that the heat network zoning that the Minister refers to is the same as the ground source heat pump networked grids that I am talking about. I wonder whether it would be worth having a further conversation outside of this Committee and whether the Minister would do me the courtesy of arranging that. I think this is an important point.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I would be very happy to arrange a meeting with the noble Baroness and appropriate officials to discuss the point that she has just made.