TV standby buttons will be outlawed
By Lewis Smith and Mark Henderson

THE Government is to outlaw standby switches on televisions and video and DVD players to cut the amount of electricity wasted in the home.

Refrigerators, washing machines and dishwashers will have to become energy-efficient, and lightbulbs that burn too much energy will be phased out.

According to yesterday’s Energy Review, standby facilities use 8 per cent of all domestic electricity.

Lighting, set-top boxes, televisions, chargers, fridges, freezers, washing machines and computers were highlighted as wasteful products that must be redesigned to save power.

New homes, which are already four times more energy-efficient than the average household, are to face stringent regulations.

Businesses will have to phase out or reduce drastically the energy used by computers, printers and photocopiers left on standby.

By cutting wastage and making equipment more efficient, ministers hope to win a significant reduction in Britain’s energy requirements.

Energy efficiency is one of the main planks of the Government’s Energy Review, which is intended to lay out how Britain receives and uses its power for the next 20 years.

Ministers want to shift energy production away from traditional fossil fuel sources to improve security of supply.

The Government hopes that the measures in the review will reduce emissions by an additional 13 to 17 per cent by 2020, on top of the estimated 14 per cent already expected.

Power companies will be expected to play their part.

They will be offered incentives to reduce the electricity supplied to each home by encouraging customers to put in insulation or install solar panels.

Eventually power companies could switch from charging per unit used to being paid by how little energy they supply. The Energy Review hardens the Government’s commitment to ensuring that renewable sources provide 20 per cent of the nation’s energy by 2020. At present they supply 4 per cent.

Offshore wind farms and renewable technologies such as wave energy are to be offered more financial incentives.

The money is being transferred from incentives offered to onshore wind farms, which are now deemed to be at or close to the point of financial self-suffiency. Onshore wind farm developments will be assisted by changes in planning laws and the appointment of a planning inspector whose responsibility will be to make sure that proposals are saved from becoming bogged down in bureaucracy.

Microgeneration technology, such as solar panels and domestic wind turbines, is to be made all but exempt from planning regulations.

Power companies are being told to make sure that there are suitable and sufficient connections to allow electricity created by microgenerators to be channelled into the National Grid.

“If energy suppliers do not develop a system to acquire electricity from microgenerators, Government will intervene,” the review promised.

The Government is anxious to strengthen the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) by expanding it to include businesses such as banks and supermarket chains.

Such a move would see many more business sectors face a capping of their carbon emissions. Roads and aviation will also be brought into the ETS if the Government can persuade its European partners to include them.

This would leave motorists and air passenegers facing higher travel costs.

If roads are brought within ETS, the Government could bring in motorway tolls, higher road tax or pay-as-you-drive schemes.

Fuel supplies are to be made greener with the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation’s commitment to ensure 5 per cent is renewable by 2010 being extended to 10 per cent by 2015.

The Government also announced the creation of a carbon emissions regulator — the Office for Climate Change.

Bron: The Times

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