Consultancy urges the Government to rethink 10% renewable planning rules
Property and construction consultancy McBains Cooper believes the Government should look carefully at its planning permission ‘renewables’ policy to prove its true understanding of the issues and drive down the cost of green energy. Current planning permission regulations dictate that new builds must include design and construction features that generate at least 10% of their energy needs from in-site renewable energy.
However, Anthony Coumidis, the company’s sustainability and energy director, explains that in the vast majority of cases, moving the renewable energy generating equipment away from the building to which it is contributing power will generate even greater efficiencies.
He says, ‘Investing, say, £250 000 in wind turbines that turn for 50% of the time on a city-centre building will not yield as much power per unit of investment compared with an identically costed development in an area where higher and more consistent wind speeds occur 75% of the time.
‘Furthermore, unless the 10% renewables rule is enforced for the life of the building, commercially challenged building owners will neglect energy-generating equipment to the extent that after a few years it may well have failed completely — but if the farm is centrally owned and maintained, then efficiencies will grow rather than fall.’
Mr Coumidis believes that each building should be assessed on its own merits rather than every new building having to generate 10% of its energy needs from renewable energy on site.
‘Some new buildings simply do not offer the highest possible return on investment in energy equipment, primarily because of their location.
‘We would propose that developers take the proportion of budget they would have spent on renewables in a new building and that it is contributed to a central fund which buys into much bigger and efficient wind, wave or solar power farms.’
