I refer noble Lords to my interests as laid out in the register and as a director of Peers for the Planet. In the interests of time, I will address just two amendments in this group, but that is not to detract from my strong support for the remaining amendments.
First, Amendment 282H, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, which has support from across your Lordships’ House and to which I have added my name, simply calls for the Government to
require all new domestic, public and commercial buildings to be fitted with solar PV and will include existing public and commercial buildings, subject to appropriate exemptions and criteria. Frankly, I do not understand the Government’s opposition to this very sensible measure. I spent four consecutive years on the planning committee while I was a councillor for Kew ward in the London Borough of Richmond. My experience there taught me absolutely to recognise that progress on this issue will be vastly expedited if the decision is not left to construction companies whose sole concern, at least for the majority, is profit.
The Government’s argument is that it is happening anyway. That fails to demonstrate that they take the need for urgent action on climate change seriously. Anyway, where is the evidence that it is happening already at effective rate? Is the figure for new-build solar PV 10%, 5% or 50%? What is the Government’s policy on this? Can the Minister tell me? Who keeps account of these figures? Surely the Government’s policy must be 100% solar PV on all new buildings and, if not, why not?
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The cost of solar has dropped dramatically, exceeding all projections in just one decade, and it is so much cheaper to install it up front than to have to retrofit. Air conditioning will become more necessary with each passing year. Therefore, cheaply available energy when the sun is shining will save countless lives as heatwaves become a regular feature of life in Britain. This amendment is a no-brainer and will have the support of the Lib Dem Benches if in due course a Division is called.
Moving on, Amendment 282NA in my name seeks to make provision for the retrofitting of an existing town to be powered exclusively by renewable energy and heated exclusively by a ground source heat network. It is that heating element that I want to focus on in my remarks.
I want to try to focus attention on the huge problem of decarbonising domestic heating—in fact, heating in all buildings—and, these days, the problem of cooling residential homes in towns and cities. My aim in tabling this amendment is to expand the Government’s interest in pilot projects from only hydrogen as a possible solution for domestic heating to other sources of heating which are much further advanced and, if I may say so, much less likely to go bang. I refer to providing decarbonised domestic heating by ground source heat networks; that is, to use the heat beneath our feet, available 24/7, 365 days a year, regardless of temperature changes.
On 6 July this year, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, who I am sorry to say is not in his seat, led an excellent debate on geothermal heat and power. For the sake of time, I will limit my remarks and refer noble Lords to my contribution to that debate, particularly with reference to the successful Heat the Streets pilot carried out by the Kensa Group in Stithians, Cornwall. The technology of providing domestic heating and cooling—all you have to do is turn the switch and you can start to cool a building as well as heat it—via shallow geothermal ground source heat pump grids in
the form of an easily accessible utility service analogous to piped gas is proven and shown to be popular with participants. What is needed now is a trial to deploy it on a much larger scale in a realistic UK town or city scenario, which is what my amendment seeks to do.