There is an electrical puzzle that retired engineer Rodney Birks just can’t solve. After a lifetime spent designing instruments for cars, Birks, 72, can’t quite work out why the government and millions of households are ignoring the single, simple way we can all cut the electricity bill for lighting our homes by 90%. It will shave nearly £2bn off the energy bills for Britain’s 25m homes. It requires just a small investment, that will be repaid within three to four months – and give you a payback lasting more than 20 years. It will stop as much as 8m tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere and the energy saved at peak time equates to the output of three power stations the size of Hinkley Point C. What irks Birks is that while the government has funded schemes such as solar power feed-in tariffs (FITs), it is not doing enough to publicise the far greater environmental and economic savings that come from an early LED switchover. Birks is far from anti-solar. His home is itself a beneficiary of FITs after he installed panels on his roof. “All those who signed up have got the FITs for 25 years. I’m getting £600 a year back from the government for 25 years. By my calculations, LEDs are 136 times more cost-effective,” he says.
Guardian 19th Jan 2019 read more »
Updated guidance to help local authorities in England with 2019 reporting requirements of their plans to support the delivery of energy efficiency improvements to residential properties within their area.
BEIS 17th Jan 2019 read more »
