At last, after 10 years on the shelf, here in draft are the Govt’s  proposals for enforcing higher environmental standards for new builds, intended to come into force in 2025.  These are out for consultation with a closing date for responses of 6th March 2024.  

Here is a link to the Gov.uk website if you fancy spending some serious time on it.

There are a lot of documents, and an invitation to respond (even as an individual).  I’ve been spending some time studying it and most of the interesting stuff appears to be in the Impact Assessment – which can be accessed as a pdf here: Consultation Stage Impact Assessment pdf

Here are some key points:

1. Enforceable Net Zero housing standards were originally targeted for 2016, but were shelved following the 2015 General Election as part of the ‘Green Crap’ clearout.  Following this consultation, the new standards should take effect by 2026 ( by which time about 1.5m houses will have been built since 2016 and will eventually need retrofitting).
2. Building Regulations changes will essentially apply to new builds only (both residential and non-residential).  There are, however, some changes affecting improvement work on the pre-existing housing stock of around 30m houses.
3. The Govt. justifies this ‘intervention’ as being essential to meet 2050 NZ targets, having forecast that, in the ‘do nothing’ scenario, the voluntary uptake of NZ new builds will be far too slow.
4. The Impact Analysis anticipates the gradual decarbonisation of the electricity grid and so the new standards will result in ‘Net Zero ready’ houses needing no further improvement.
5. The proposals are presented in the form of 2 options, but doesn’t state a preference. Presumably this will emerge from the consultations.

Both options involve:

• an all-electric home, i.e  no more gas connections (thereby precluding Hydrogen as an alternative strategic domestic energy source).
• Continuance of the insulation standards last upgraded in 2021 (but no further upgrade).

Option 1 additionally involves:

• Air Source Heat Pump
• Solar Panels
• Waste water heat recovery
• Improved airtightness and mechanical ventilation control

Option 1 benefits the home owner via free electricity and reduced heat loss, but costs the developers in a number of ways including equipment and upskilling.

Option 2 additionally involves,

• Just the Air Source Heat Pump

Option 2 costs the homeowner via increased electricity costs (outweighing gas saving), but  developers would make a saving.

There is some concern about the way these Options are presented.   The consultation appears to be inviting the building industry to press for the ‘soft option’ of heat pumps only.   If that’s the outcome then solar PV will continue to be a retrofit option for home owners rather than a default for new builds.  Watch this space!