Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to reduce energy costs in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is committed to reducing energy usage in order to realise cost savings and achieve the Greening Government Commitments (GGC) target of 25% carbon reduction by 2014/15.

The Department has implemented a number of initiatives to reduce the estate’s energy consumption:

a) Estate Rationalisation has maximised space utilisation and improved the usability and capacity of core buildings. In central London the Department has achieved significant energy savings by reducing from eight buildings to one. This has resulted in an estimated £10.7 million in property savings per annum for the period 2012-2021 including significantly reduced energy costs.

b) A partial building shutdown is observed over each Christmas break at 1 Victoria Street. Staff are located in a discrete area of the HQ building between Christmas and New Year, to minimise heating and lighting energy consumption.

c) The Department operates a temperature ‘deadband’ where no heating or cooling operates, The ‘deadband’ stops conflict between heating and cooling systems whilst maintaining a comfortable working environment.

d) The Department’s arms-length bodies are also fully committed to reducing energy consumption and associated costs. At Companies House a biomass boiler has been installed. The 500KW wood pellet boiler has replaced 2.4MW gas boilers and now provides 88% of heating to the building and this technology will save £30,000 annually.