The shift to renewable heat is hotting up
In this new blog, Senior Policy Manager Fabrice Leveque writes about why the Scottish Government's Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies and district heating consultations are only one step in the right direction on a long, long road.
Scottish Government recently consulted on a raft of proposals to accelerate our shift to renewable heating.
It’s urgently needed.
With two years left, it’s now clear that we won’t hit the 2020 target to get 11% of our heat from renewables, whilst the recently published Energy Strategy aims to increase that figure to 20% by 2030.
The Government consulted on two sets of proposals to help solve the heat puzzle.
One hopes to give us a clearer picture of the low-carbon heat system we’re trying to build, while the other should give us some more pieces to slot into it.These are part of the Scottish Government’s plans to decarbonise buildings and tackle fuel poverty – now known as the SEEP (Scotland’s Energy Efficiency Programme). It’s the second consultation on these proposals and we’re hoping they’ll be passed into law by a Bill in the Scottish Parliament within the next two years.
That big picture will come from local heat and decarbonisation strategies (whose actual name are Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies, or LHEES).
The Government is proposing that all of Scotland’s local authorities be required to produce a plan to decarbonise heat supply in their area. This makes sense because heat is very much a local issue - it’s usually generated in individual buildings.
It’s an idea that’s long been called for, so it’s good to see the Scottish Government be the first to take this idea forward in the UK.
Local Authorities will have to assess their building stock to determine where to target energy efficiency improvements, as well as the most appropriate low-carbon heating – whether that’s district heat networks, electric heat pumps, biomass or a potentially decarbonised gas grid.
Once areas have been ‘zoned’ the Government will then target its own delivery programmes: both retrofit energy efficiency schemes and programmes to develop new district heat networks (see below).
Scottish Renewables would also like to see new policies and programmes to install low-carbon heat in homes and offices, particularly in rural areas that don’t have access to gas.
These strategies could tackle a key problem holding back the sector: low public awareness of the need to switch away from fossil fuel heating, and how to do it.
A recent pilot project (funded through the SEEP programme) on the Island of Iona has shown how: a coordinated approach involving the local authority has secured agreement from a large number of homes and businesses to switch to a shared electric heating system.
LHEES are a good idea, but they need to focus on deploying technologies that are ready to go now as much as on laying long-term plans.
That will help Scotland’s low-carbon heat sector to continue to grow, which will be particularly vital as we approach the end of several key policies like the RHI.
The Scottish Government is also proposing a set of measures to accelerate the take-up of district heating.
Its proposals would require new network developers to apply for consents and licenses, to improve quality, customer protection and make sure networks grow in a coordinated, and low-carbon, way.
The Government hopes its reforms will stimulate the construction of new networks by requiring Local Authorities to identify suitable ‘district heat zones’ to be developed themselves or by private contractors.
These zones won’t just be identified on a technical basis but will consider the wider (and usually unquantified) benefits that heat networks can bring: lower carbon energy and better air quality, among others.
That, as is so often the case in renewable heat, mirrors the approach taken in other countries like Denmark and Holland, where district heat networks have a much larger share of the market.
The proposals provide a good foundation to help grow the market in Scotland - but the package doesn’t go far enough to truly kick-start an industry.
A key policy that has worked abroad has been an obligation on existing nearby buildings to connect to proposed new networks.
This measure is particularly crucial to help get the first pipes of a new network built, but has been dropped from the Scottish Government’s current proposals.
Large buildings are critical for extending new networks to existing buildings. Public sector buildings are in theory required to consider the wider benefits of heat networks when considering a proposal; but many will walk away from what looks like a risky new technology.
A recent industry-wide taskforce has been looking at these problems in parallel to the Scottish Government’s work. It recently recommended that the UK Government make heat networks a regulated asset - another way to reduce some of the demand risk that holds back projects.
There’s a long road to travel to make that vision a reality, but it would work well alongside the Scottish Government’s plans.
More broadly, it’s still very hard for district heating, and more generally low-carbon heat, to compete against existing fossil fuel heating systems.