by Jonathan Wheeler
Nearly four million, mainly rural, UK homes (15%) are not connected to the gas grid. These homes must use another energy source, such as oil, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), coal or electricity for heating, which have higher emissions than natural gas. Getting these homes onto low carbon heating is therefore disproportionately better than getting the same number of gas grid homes to switch.
The Climate Change Committee has noted that oil and LPG-heated homes are responsible for 8 Mt CO2e, out of a total of 9 Mt CO2e of direct emissions from off-gas homes. These ‘off gas’ homes, mainly situated in rural and peri-urban areas, make up a greater share of heating emissions (23%) due to the higher carbon intensity of oil and LPG compared to gas.
With nearly 20% of homes in rural areas in the lowest F and G energy efficiency bands (compared to just 2.4% in urban areas), the rural poor have to save proportionately more on their energy bill than their urban counterpart for it to be affordable.
The Energy Savings Trust expressed this ‘double disadvantage’ of poor housing stock coupled with expensive off-grid heating. ‘the typical rural, fuel poor family would have to find a way to save over £600 a year on theirenergy bill before their energy costs become affordable. A typical fuel poor family living in town only has to achieve around £300 savings to reach an affordable level’. They add that only 40% of homes in rural areas have gas boilers (the cheapest heating option) compared to 91.1% of urban households.
One of the authors of this report carries out farm energy audits in preparation for renewable energy feasibility studies and has surprisingly often found that the biggest electricity use across the whole farm comes from the farmhouse itself – so its impact on the farm’s overall energy cost and carbon footprint should not be ignored.
A 2011 report by the ‘Future of Rural Energy England’ project found a recurring theme which suggested that people on private rented accommodation were concerned about improving their homes, for fear of being subject to rent increases. A regional study found that they were also concerned about complaining about poor building fabric and heat to landlords (e.g. on tenanted estates) for fear of losing their home and their livelihoods.
Rural areas need higher installation rates of small-scale renewable technologies (e.g. solar thermal, biomass and heat pumps) for renewable heat in rural locations, and particularly for those off the gas grid.
Nevertheless, there are clear policy gaps that need to be addressed to enable rural homes and businesses (particularly those excluded from the gas grid) to utilise their own resources (wind, water, sun and biomass) to create energy, either individually or at a community level.