New Local Government Network » Climate change and sustainability

Power and Money: How local economies can benefit from renewable energy

editor — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:01:37 +0000

Localism think tank, NLGN have called on councils to try and cushion some of the current financial pressures they face by making greater use of green energy subsidies – with an estimated pot available of up to £12 billion over the next two decades.

With some council budgets being cut by nearly 9% next year, a new report Power and Money highlights how some authorities are already starting to install solar panels on social housing and other council properties, thereby accessing new sources of funding through the ‘Feed-in Tariff’ and the ‘Renewable Heat Incentive’.

However, NLGN has also warned how a lack of clarity from the government on its support for schemes is hindering such development. With only 275 community properties among the 20,000 Feed-in tariff installations accredited last year, there is a danger that the vast potential for green energy solutions across the local government estate will be left largely unfulfilled.

Report author, Luke Hildyard said:

“We estimate that the Feed-in Tariff and the Renewable Heat Incentive could represent an estimated £12 billion investment in renewable energy. Local authorities will be able to access what could be a potentially vital source of revenue at a time of unprecedented budget cuts.”

“But by carrying out the review of the Feed-in tariff earlier than planned and delaying the renewable heat incentive, the Government has increased the risk factor for those planning to roll-out micro-generation installations locally. Renewable energy projects require costly and time-consuming planning and research, which councils may be reluctant to undertake in an uncertain environment.”

While direct financial returns are one potential benefit for councils, the NLGN report also shows how green investment can soften the blow of public sector job losses by creating new eco-friendly jobs in the private sector.

Case study examples in the report include Kirklees Council, whose Leader, Cllr Mehboob Khan, said:

“We viewed the new incentives as an opportunity to develop the local green economy, support and create jobs as well as reduce carbon and tackle fuel poverty. The projects we are developing build on previous experience and are good news for our residents.”

Paint the Town Green: Meeting the energy efficiency challenge at community level

editor — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 10:30:41 +0000

Social housing accounts for disproportionate growth in fuel poverty
Government urged to use energy company obligations to support fuel poor households
Tenants need right to demand green deal improvements

The New Local Government Network has published a report suggesting that the government’s flagship ‘Green Deal’ programme will be in danger of failing to reach the households most in need of more energy efficient homes across the social housing sector.

The Green Deal allows households to install home energy efficiency improvements with a value of up to £6,500 at no upfront cost, with the cost paid back by the householder over a period of 25 years. But for many of the 1.4 million social homes classified as ‘hard to treat’, the efficiency measures would cost more than would be saved in reduced energy bills.

Our research, supported by British Gas, also raises concerns about whether those in fuel poverty would be helped by the scheme. A household is considered to be in fuel poverty if they need to spend more than 10per cent of their income on energy costs in order to achieve an adequate level of warmth. The most recent available figures from 2008 recorded 628,000 social homes in fuel poverty, an increase of 134,000 on the previous year. This accounts for 26 per cent of the growth in fuel poverty across England, despite the fact that social housing only makes up 18 per cent of the housing stock.

The report also finds that the current schemes sometimes fail to reach those people most in need of assistance because of a narrow focus on particular areas and demographics. NLGN argues that this funding should be directed specifically at alleviating fuel poverty and supporting those homes which the Green Deal will pass over.

Further measures are also required to ensure take up of the Green Deal. The report argues for a prominent role for social landlords in co-ordinating Green Deal measures across their estates on an area wide basis, with pilots suggesting that costs can be reduced by as much as 20 per cent per home when whole streets are improved collectively. Around 300,000 social homes have an Energy Efficiency Rating of F or G for the least efficient properties, however NLGN’s report identifies challenges in convincing tenants to sign up for the Green Deal. To encourage local authorities and RSLs to promote the scheme across their communities, the report recommends that:

Local Authorities and RSLs should form partnerships with energy suppliers to deliver the Green Deal to both social homes and to those in the private sector
Tenants in the private and social sectors should have the right to demand energy efficiency improvements from their landlord, funded by a Green Deal arrangement
The proposed £6,500 limit on the Green Deal should be lifted, in order to allow the scheme to cover more expensive measures that will also deliver long-term savings on energy bills
Discounts and incentives should be offered to neighbourhoods when they take up the Green Deal offer as whole streets
The scope of the Green Deal be expanded to encompass microgeneration of renewable energy, enabling social homes to benefit from the Feed-in Tariff and Renewable Heat Incentive

Report author, Luke Hildyard said:

“The general principal of the Green Deal is a sound one, but the scheme’s application in the social housing sector will be fraught with difficulties. Many low-income households cannot currently afford to heat their homes, so improved energy efficiency will not result in savings on their fuel bill. A revised supplier obligation needs to be targeted at those fuel poor households who will not be able to take advantage of the Green Deal.”

Gearoid Lane, Managing Director of Communities and New Energy at British Gas:

“British Gas is committed to the Green Deal, which promises to be a transformational policy in improving the energy efficiency of Britain’s housing stock. But this report shows that the Green Deal is not a panacea – especially for the most vulnerable in our society including many in social housing for whom simple energy efficiency measures can permanently improve quality of life and help eradicate fuel poverty. We would support a revised and more flexible system of supplier obligations post-2012 that helps us to quickly and effectively target those households in partnership with local authorities and housing associations.”

The report also states that:

“The growth of fuel poverty in the social sector is outpacing that in private housing. Recent housing policy changes have the potential to exacerbate the situation, thereby heightening an already disproportionate increase in the number of fuel poor social homes. Pre-emptive action to prevent this is vital”.

Time to Waste: Tackling the landfill challenge

editor — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:59:40 +0000

New report confirms pitfalls of charging for rubbish – but urges bravery on energy from waste. The report:

Highlights drastic figures that show most rubbish in the UK is still not recycled;
Recommends a major increase of energy-from-waste incineration as best way to stave off landfill crisis;
Believes the looming landfill tax burden must force a rethink to protect the council tax payer;
Suggests Government should use community-based, rather financial incentives to encourage recycling, rather than household rewards and charging;

Time to Waste confirms that Government plans to scrap charging for rubbish would be a wise move, but warns that other tough decisions have to be made if the UK is to reduce the amount of waste it throws out and avoid hefty landfill burdens on council tax payers.

Citing research that currently only 31% of all household rubbish thrown out in Britain is recycled – one of the worst rates in Europe – the New Local Government Network (NLGN) has called for councils to introduce financial incentives for people to reduce the amount of waste they produce, instead of threatening them with fines. Under the alternative plan, neighbourhoods would be rewarded for reducing their waste output and increasing the amount they recycling with grants that they can spend on their local community. The money could be spent on items such as better street lighting or children’s equipment for a local park.

The report concludes that “introducing penalising charges for waste will not assist in the amount of rubbish society throws away” and highlights concerns that “charging for rubbish would be unpopular, difficult to administer and could increase fly-tipping”.

However, the report argues for bravery on new alternatives to deal with the waste challenge, in particular the need to radically increase carbon-friendly energy-from-waste incineration. The report acknowledges that energy-from-waste incineration plants can provoke instinctive unpopularity in some local communities and therefore recommends returning some of the financial benefits from energy sold back to the grid to neighbouring residents, perhaps offering a £50 discount on the energy bills of households within those areas that agree to host the new plants. The report suggests that to meet the EU target to reduce the amount of land-filled waste, 10 large-scale or 200 smaller scale plants may have to be built.

Britain currently produces around 330 million tonnes of waste each year and disposes of the majority of it into landfill. Figures show that that Britain sends 7 million tonnes more rubbish than any other European country. It is estimated that the country will run out of landfill space in around nine years, with London and the South East due to run out in four years. The NLGN report therefore argues that the Government should shift its emphasis onto creating energy-from-waste through a new generation of incineration plants.

It also argues that councils could do more to inform the public about the need to reduce the amount of waste they throw out, such as publishing how much waste it disposes of each year and how much is recycled, alongside indicating waste charges separately on council tax bills to highlight how much the council spends on it.

The report is supported by Serco and United Utilities.

NLGN Director Chris Leslie said:

“With landfill tax increasing year on year and some authorities spending millions of pounds dealing with the problem of rubbish disposal, it is clear that the Government has to adopt a new approach to this challenge. None of the options we looked at are simple but switching away from buying rubbish to creating energy from waste is the greenest, most efficient solution”.

“We also want to see households given a positive incentive to reduce the amount of rubbish they throw away, rather than being persecuted by individual fines. By offering local communities financial incentives, residents would be able to benefit their locality as well as the wider environment”.

Mike Boult, Managing Director of Serco, said:

“There will come a point where the cost of waste disposal will become so high that it will make energy from waste profitable. There is a perception in the private sector that the financial benefits will, in the long-term, enable you to get cheaper electricity…and if the council is saving on waste disposal, it could translate into council tax reductions”.

The Politics of Traffic: A local route to reduced congestion

editor — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:26:18 +0000

A new NLGN report calls for the Government to step back from any national road pricing approaches and instead pursue a permissive approach where local authorities are put more firmly in the driving seat. While the DfT says it has made ‘no decision’ yet on national pricing, NLGN is urging Ministers not to head in that direction. Instead, councils should lead approaches to reduce congestion and consider locality-based charging if merited by local circumstances. The report argues that a series of radical measures are required to stop congestion on Britain’s roads rising by a predicted 30% by 2025, including:
scrapping the current £380 million fuel subsidy the Government gives to bus operators, and instead allowing this same resource to be allocated by local authorities to incentivise improved local bus routing and timetabling;

removing the local transport regulatory powers from England’s six unelected and appointed-for-life Traffic Commissioners, instead devolving their powers to elected local council leaders;

making Council Leaders accountable to new Passenger Forums and allowing them scope to influence local employer behaviour, which could dramatically reduce peak time congestion; and

the sanctioning of locally-defined congestion charging or local road pricing schemes should rest with the elected local authority and tailored to local circumstances rather than see all traffic affected by a blanket national road pricing regime.

NLGN Director Chris Leslie said:

“It is nonsense in this day and age for unelected and barely visible Traffic Commissioners, who are currently appointed for life, to have powers to register and regulate local buses. Local communities across the country are crying out for better public transport, and these Traffic Commissioners cannot possibly have the local knowledge necessary to deliver the best results. Elected local government and Council Leaders should be where the buck stops, so passengers and residents know where to direct their concerns.”

The study also argues that there is huge potential for new technology to improve the experience on public transport and to map the needs of local communities. Through these opportunities, local authorities can bring about behavioural change and tackle congestion in their communities.

Carbon Footprints, Local Steps: How local government can rise to the climate change challenge

editor — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:01:11 +0000

A new NLGN report argues that the Government goal of 60 per cent carbon dioxide reduction can be achieved 25 years earlier than currently forecast. It claims that local councils could introduce measures that would save 320 million tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2025.

The report, supported by Serco and Kirklees Council, identifies a number of viable actions that councils would take to reduce their area’s carbon emissions. These range from converting landfill waste into electricity and offering interest-free loans for people to invest in microgeneration technology, to more radical options such as introducing congestion charging and allocating each local resident with a ‘carbon credit’ to monitor and limit household CO2 emissions. Remarkably, the report also argues that most decisions made could be politically advantageous rather than hurtful through strong local political leadership.

NLGN Director Chris Leslie said:

“If Government Ministers chose today to give new financial incentives and penalties to each town or city depending on their carbon-saving performance, then the UK’s climate change obligations could be met faster and with more”.

The report advocates introducing a carbon trading framework between local authorities, financially rewarding councils that reduce their emissions, and penalising those who don’t. This is based upon a study of eight local authorities who participated in a carbon trading role play to reduce CO2 emissions in their locality. In the study, councils officers were obliged to introduce a number of economically and politically viable policies over a five year period to reduce their carbon emissions, with all authorities registering a reduction. The report concludes that a performance grant system would act as a powerful driver for local actions that would reduce CO2 emissions.

The report’s author, James McGregor argues:

“Local government can take responsibility for reducing carbon emissions. Our research reveals that if the performance of the best local authorities can be matched, councils can reduce CO2 production by 60 per cent by 2025. This is 25 years before central government expects to reach this level of saving. This is a powerful offer that should not be ignored”.

“Councils have the democratic legitimacy to bring together local public bodies, businesses and communities in partnerships. They also offer to influence how citizens behave. Councils must become exemplars of sustainability to be able to influence the behaviour of others. Reducing emissions from council buildings and embedding sustainability in services are vital precursors to exercising leadership. The council must be viewed as a beacon of good practice”.

“Our research also reveals the important roles that targets, competition and finance play in driving improvement. Targets give officers clear goals and benchmarks against which success can be measured. A sense of competition between peers encourages better performance. Consideration of the cost effectiveness of actions to tackle climate change encourages officers to be creative in their approaches. Together, these led to sustained improvement in performance over time”.

“Tackling climate change is overwhelmingly politically popular under the right circumstances. Councils are also capable of winning approval for new local regulations. Long-term actions tended to grow in popularity over time as the benefits were realised. This suggests that strong and bold political leadership is key to realising local government’s potential to tacking climate change”.

How can we refuse?: Tackling the waste challenge

editor — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:48:48 +0000

A pamphlet published by the New Local Government Network suggests that the consultation on waste charging is a red herring. The level of any individual waste charge or recycling incentive will be too small to drive behavioural change. On its own, it is also unlikely to deliver significant financial or environmental benefits to the area. Instead, should local councils want to introduce such a scheme as part of a wider strategy, it should operate at a ward and community level. This would be simpler and most cost effective to implement, help build community spirit and provide more tangible rewards to successful wards.

NLGN also recommend that councils could avoid the admisitrative and financial burden of a complex charging scheme altogether. Instead, local authorities should use the opportunity created by the debate to have a more comprehensive conversation with their electorate on the difficult long-term choices necessary to really meet the waste challenge.

Anthony Brand, author of the report, How can we refuse?, argues that:

‘Councils and their partners should calculate, publish and distribute ward level (or similar) recycling rates. Incentives (e.g. a proportion of cost savings or charges) could then be distributed to those wards that show the greatest improvement to be spent in a manner to be decided upon in consultation with residents from that locality. This system would be less resource intensive, simpler to monitor with fewer unwanted side effects’.

‘As a nation we remain ill-informed of the real costs of waste disposal, the techniques already used widely elsewhere in Europe and the real financial and environmental consequences of doing nothing. The emergence of the national charging debate presents an opportunity to set this right’.

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Finding the Energy: Domestic microgeneration and planning

editor — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 07:46:26 +0000

Local citizens could receive Council Tax rebates for installing microgeneration solar panels and wind turbines;

Councils could consult local people on relaxing the planning regulations for installing microgeneration technology;

Councils could offer interest-free loans for citizens to purchase microgeneration equipment.

A pamphlet published by the New Local Government Network has called for local planning laws to be relaxed to allow more people the option of installing eco-friendly energy sources to their homes. It has called for local councillors to be able to consult with local residents on whether to reduce the amount of planning permission required to install a microgeneration system. The pamphlet suggests that the forthcoming Planning Bill could be amended to reflect this new level of public involvement.

It also calls for councils to support residents wishing to invest in microgeneration technology, including offering interest-free loans to cover the cost of installation and giving a Council Tax rebate to homes with an eco-friendly energy supply. Currently the Government offers a grant of up to 30% to pay for the installation of micro-generation technology.

Central government could also give local authorities incentives to promote microgeneration through a cost-neutral performance grant that would reward those whom improve most quickly. This could form a part of the local government grants regime and be cost neutral for central government, where the cost of rewarding successful authorities is offset by a mild penalty for poor performance.

James Macgregor, author of the report, Finding the Energy, argues that:

“local authorities should be required to demonstrate that microgeneration plans were in the public interest. This would require neighbourhood level consultation and debate, giving citizens a powerful voice. Councillors would be at the heart of this process, supported by local officers. Listening to the voices of local people in this way would ensure that ‘residential amenity’ was protected as defined by residents. Council tax rebates and capital loans for householders that install domestic microgeneration equipment would incentivise local people to engage in the process”.

“This system would empower local citizens and frontline representatives to take ownership of the impact of domestic microgeneration in their neighbourhoods”.

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