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The ADE urges the government to take a zoning approach on retrofitting buildings
The Association for Decentralised Energy (The ADE) have presented their vision for energy efficiency zoning in their new paper launched in partnership with UK Power Networks.
Most current policies are aimed at making new builds energy efficient but the majority of the buildings that need to be decarbonised are already built. For this reason, the ADE are urging the government to address the ‘retrogap’ in policy buy introducing new policies to retrofit heat decarbonisation and energy efficient technologies.
As a result, the ADE have suggested the best way to do this is by ‘zoning’. Zoning would mean taking local opportunities and constraints into consideration and using these to identify the most appropriate methods of creating decarbonsation and energy efficiency packages for each area.
Policy Manager, Charlotte Owen, at the ADE commented;
“Enabling local decision making and locally tailored decarbonisation pathways will play a key role in reaching net zero. Without implementing approaches such as zoning, the UK risks falling behind on carbon budgets, as set out by the CCC, by missing opportunities for whole systems optimisation, including the use of demand side response. The report suggests that the UK must commit to a strategic patchwork approach to heat decarbonisation, over a single technology pathway. Otherwise, we risk preventing local areas that already have clear decarbonisation opportunities from acting.”
If you would like to read more on this, you can find more information on the ADE website here.
