Committee on Climate Change

There is significant potential to cut emissions from existing homes and these measures will save people money on energy bills. 

Emissions can be reduced in five main ways:

1.  Improving insulation and heating efficiency in homes

Ensuring a house is well insulated, and the heating system is well maintained and efficient will reduce emissions and save money. To achieve carbon budgets, our analysis suggests that it is necessary to:

• Insulate 10.5 million lofts and 8 million cavity walls by 2015 (compared to 2007 levels).
• Install solid wall insulation in  2million homes by 2020
• Replace 12 million old boilers with new energy efficient ones by 2022

The Energy Saving Trust estimates that loft insulation can save up to £150 and cavity wall insulation could save £115 a year.

2.  Changing behaviour

There are many easy ways for all of us to reduce our carbon footprint, with little or no impact on the quality of life. Washing at lower temperatures, turning lights off when leaving a room and turning thermostats down by just 1°C are all simple ways of saving money and reducing CO₂.

Smart meters can help homeowners manage their energy use better.  The Government is committed to all homes having a smart meter by 2020.

Awareness raising campaigns such as Act on CO₂ and the 10:10 campaign also seek to raise awareness of what individuals can do to reduce their carbon footprint and change behaviour.

3.  Using more energy efficient appliances

Electricity consumption has grown rapidly with the increasing use of information technology and consumer electronic products. Simple ways of saving money and carbon are to turn appliances off  when not in use, and when buying new appliances to consider their energy efficiency. Many products now have energy labels which make it easy to choose more efficient appliances and save money.

To achieve carbon budgets it is necessary that the proportion of energy efficient appliances used by homeowners increases so that in 2022, over 58% of dishwashers, washing machines and tumble dryers are A+rated, and over 45% of fridges and freezers are A++ rated.

4.  Increasing the use of renewable heat technologies

Renewable heat technology such as heat pumps, biomass boilers and biogas provide a low carbon way of heating our homes.
 
5.  Using electricity from low/ zero-carbon sources

The decarbonisation of the electricity supply will provide large savings in the residential sector.
While there is a large technical potential to reduce emissions by 2022 in the residential sector, there are various supply and demand constraints which affect the likely uptake of measures.  In the CCC’s extended and stretch ambition scenarios we assume that emission reductions of at least 35% and 38% on 2007 levels are possible, even with these constraints. 

The CCC uses a set of indicators e.g. number of lofts to be insulated by 2022, to monitor Government’s progress towards meeting the carbon budgets.  In the period to 2022 in residential buildings we will track the reduction in emissions and energy consumption but also observe the key measures that will help get us there.  

The 2020s

Although we expect residential emissions reductions of 20 MtCO₂ in 2020, it will still be important to cut emissions through energy efficiency measures in the 2020s. This is because the projected 30% growth in the number of households over the decade to around 33 million by 2030 could increase buildings emissions by up to 20 MtCO₂ if existing levels of household energy consumption remain unchanged.  In addition, it is estimated that existing houses will still account for 90% of the housing stock in 2030.

In terms of the measures to reduce emissions, the widespread uptake of loft and cavity wall insulation by 2020 means that attention in the 2020s will have to shift to other measures that had previously enjoyed less penetration, with solid wall insulation being a notable example. In total, energy efficiency measures will have the potential to deliver  a further 21 MtCO₂ in the 2020s.

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