Written evidence submitted by ROCKWOOL Ltd (DHH0039)
About ROCKWOOL
ROCKWOOL Ltd is part of the ROCKWOOL Group. With over 11,000 colleagues in more 39 countries, the ROCKWOOL Group is the world leader in stone wool solutions. ROCKWOOL Ltd is the UK's leading manufacturer in sustainable stone wool insulation materials for thermal and acoustic purposes as well as fire resilience. Our insulation is non-combustible and is produced at our factory near Bridgend, South Wales.
ROCKWOOL provides a comprehensive range of insulation products. Our insulation is created from a natural, sustainable resource – volcanic rock – and is recyclable. During its lifetime, a typical ROCKWOOL insulation product will save more than 100 times the energy used in its manufacture.
ROCKWOOL welcomes the opportunity to respond to the inquiry into decarbonising heat in homes. In addition to manufacturing insulation products, ROCKWOOL is an experienced partner in energy efficiency retrofit, in particular ECO and its predecessors. We have responded to the questions where our experience and expertise is relevant, specifically on how buildings’ energy efficiency should be considered alongside decarbonising heat, which is where our expertise and experience lie.
What key policies, priorities and timelines should be included in the Government’s forthcoming ‘Buildings and Heat Strategy’ to ensure that the UK is on track to deliver Net Zero? What are the most urgent decisions and actions that need to be taken over the course of this Parliament (by 2024)?
The key priority for Government’s forthcoming ‘Buildings and Heat Strategy’ must be to improve the energy efficiency of the building stock before delivering the installation of new heating systems. Only once the building fabric has been improved should attention turn to optimising the heating source.
Without all appropriate efficiency measures in place, carbon reduction efforts through decarbonising heat systems are less effective and will have less of an impact on bringing down utility bills. Supplying heat to inefficient buildings requires generation not only of the heat that is needed, but also the heat that is wasted.
Additionally, as many low carbon technologies work best when radiators and heating elements run at lower temperatures, it will always be imperative that properties are well insulated and draft-proofed to maintain comfort levels for occupants.
Furthermore, the ‘Buildings and Heat Strategy’ must not cut across the Government’s ‘Fuel Poverty Strategy’. Switching the fuel source will not solve the problem of under-heating in cold and damp homes (conditions prevalent in fuel poor households) and will therefore not deliver warmer and healthier homes in isolation. Improving the building fabric first will in turn improve the performance achieved through heating measures installed subsequently – ensuring that fuel poor homes can keep energy bills as low as possible.
Therefore, we believe the Buildings and Heat Strategy should, as its starting point, lay out how Government intends to improve the energy efficiency of the building stock in the UK. The recently announced Green Homes Grants are a welcome first step to improve up to 600, 000 homes in England. However, there are 19 million homes that will need energy efficiency improvements to bring them up to the Government’s target of EPC C, and so Government policy will need to go further.
ROCKWOOL are members of the Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group, and we have recently published a report, Turning Stimulus into Recovery: From the Green Homes Grant towards a Resilient Net Zero Economy[1], that sets out a long-term programme and investment plan for the decarbonisation, of our homes, that needs to be laid through the raft of critical policy decisions anticipated by the end of this year.
Key recommendations include extending the retrofit project completion timeline of the Green Homes Grant by at least six months; committing a further £7.8 billion for home energy efficiency over the four years to the end of this Parliament; introducing a suite of new structural incentives to drive demand for home energy upgrades; and bringing forward the EPC C target to 2030.
This must be a priority for this parliament, ahead of the roll out of new heating systems. Government does not need to wait for decisions to be made regarding new heat technologies before acting on energy efficiency. A recent study for the Department for Business, Energy and the Industrial Strategy on ‘Alternative Heat Solutions’[2] looked at different technology options for decarbonising heat in towns and found that investment in fabric efficiency results in lower life-cycle costs for all technology options.
How can the costs of decarbonising heat be distributed fairly across consumers, taxpayers, business and government, taking account of the fuel poor and communities affected by the transition? What is the impact of the existing distribution of environmental levies across electricity, gas and fuel bills on drivers for switching to low carbon heating, and should this distribution be reviewed?
We have no comment on how the cost of a heating system should be distributed across different stakeholders, but we think it is important to consider that though the capital cost of a heating network will be a very large investment, this can be controlled and limited by improving the energy efficiency of homes, thereby reducing the demand for heat, and delivering better value for money for all the actors involved
As stated in our previous answer, without all appropriate efficiency measures in place, carbon reduction efforts through decarbonising heat systems are less effective and will have less of an impact on bringing down utility bills. Supplying heat to inefficient buildings requires generation not only of the heat that is needed, but also the heat that is wasted. This places pressure on consumer bills as well as on the investment needed both at a local level for small scale technologies and at a national level to decarbonise the UK’s energy generation capacity. According to the Green Finance Institution, without all appropriate efficiency improvements in place, the cost of heat decarbonisation could be £6.2 billion higher per year to 2050.[3] At an individual household level, for a typically sized home that is efficient, installation of a heat pump could be £1,000 cheaper than for a home that is not.[4]
In fact, the Committee on Climate Change in a recent evidence session to the Environmental Audit Committee[5] stated that they have estimated that by upgrading the whole of the housing stock over the next ten to fifteen years, ‘we can not only offset the costs of low-carbon heating, but we may well see lower energy bills in perpetuity from that point forward.’
[1] Rebuilding for resilience: energy efficiency’s offer for a net zero compatible stimulus and recover, Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group, June 2020
[2] Alternative heat solutions: converting a town to low carbon heating, Ramboll, February 2019
[3] Financing energy efficient buildings: the path to retrofit at scale, Green Finance Institute, May 2020
[4] Rebuilding for resilience: energy efficiency’s offer for a net zero compatible stimulus and recover, Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group, June 2020
[5] Energy Efficiency of Existing Homes HC 346, Environmental Audi Committee, Thursday 15 October 2020