2021 Home Energy CO2 assessment

This page summarises the input we have received from our community on their 2021 CO2 emissions from home energy consumption. The purpose fo the annual CO2 assessment is so that we can establish a ‘baseline’ to track our improvements over the long term towards reducing our CO2 emissions from home energy to zero. 

1. To help with planning for actions to reduce CO2 emissions from Home Energy emissions we have a ‘Home Energy Action‘ page.
2. Please click this link if you would like to provide or update your annual CO2 Self Assessment 

Summary

This chart summarises the number of properties in Beech that have signed up for the Thermal Survey and or CO2 self assessment along with the approximate year of construction and then the minimum, average and maximum value for CO2 emissions in kilograms.

Here is a summary of the data:

Conclusions:

The participation of 69 households is over 30% of the occupied properties in Beech, of which, 52 have provided a CO2 self assessment.

There is not a strong correlation between house age and CO2 emissions. Older houses tend to have a wider range of CO2 emissions.

The average annual CO2 emissions of 8,298kg is surprisingly close to the IMPACT tool assessment of 8,255kg.

In gathering the data many of us have questioned how we should handle the following areas: 

1. Home car charging.
   1. If you have an electric car your CO2 emissions for ‘transportation’ are likely to be lower but your home energy emissions may be higher. 
   2. You may combine an electric car with solar panels
   3. You may use an ‘off peak’ charging tariff that may be more ‘renewable’ than other ‘renewable’ tariffs.
2. CO2 emissions from ‘Renewable’ energy suppliers
   1. We would refer you to the detailed article by the Consumers Association on the ‘Differences between green energy suppliers‘
3. Log burners
   1. As per the table in on our ‘Self Assessment‘ page the UK governments 2021 assessment of CO2 emissions from burning wood was 0.10 kg of CO2 per kg of wood. Many of us may consider using a log burner instead of, or to augment other heating sources.
   2. Log burning may emit less CO2 as it is a potentially ‘renewable’ source. However, log burning does potentially impact ‘air quality’ and health depending on the type of fuel and burner used.
      1. The UK government has published a ‘Clean Air Strategy‘
      2. The UK Consumers Association have published guidance on ‘Wood Burning stoves‘

In principle we are focussed on SELF ASSESSMENT. How individuals choose to account for these is a personal decision, the important point is to try to be consistent from year to year in order to track progression. and to remain focussed on the overall goal of getting total CO2 emissions to zero in the long term.

Analysis by Energy Performance Certification (EPC)

This chart summarises the properties in Beech which have an EPC rating and have provided a CO2 self assessment against the minimum, average and maximum annual CO2 emissions in kilograms. 

Some conclusions

Whilst the properties with a B EPC rating have the lowest CO2 self assessment there does not appear to be a strong correlation between the other EPC ratings and CO2 emissions.

113 of the 234 properties in Beech have a published EPC rating. This is just under 50%. The chart below shows the quantity of houses by EPC rating:

D is the most common rating. 

For more information on: Energy Performance Certificates

EPC’s are assessed using a UK government endorsed ‘Stand Assessment Procedure (SAP)‘. For existing buildings, a simplified version of SAP called Reduced Data SAP (RdSAP) is used to assess the energy performance.