§ Mr. BoswellTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what research he has(a) commissioned and (b) evaluated into trends in energy use in the office and commercial business sectors. [87362]
§ Mr. BattleMy Department and the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) have commissioned work on services sector energy consumption in recent years.
At the request of officials in my Department the Building Research Establishment (BRE) has been commissioned to investigate methods for estimating energy consumption in the office and commercial business sectors. The report on this work is in progress and is expected to be completed during the summer of 1999.
In order to assess the pattern of energy end uses and what emission reductions may be achieved to tackle climate change the DETR has commissioned BRE to carry out work to improve the understanding of energy use in non-domestic buildings. This ongoing project resulted in the publication in January 1998 of the "Non-Domestic Building Energy Fact File". The results of this project underpin the work described in the previous paragraph.
Statisticians in DTI have produced an analysis of trends in services sector energy consumption. This provided information for the private commercial sector as a whole and was published in December 1997 by the Stationery Office in "Energy Paper 66: Energy Consumption in the United Kingdom". Information on services sector energy consumption is also routinely published in the "Energy Report Volume 2" and in the "Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics".