Energy Efficiency (Hansard, 13 November 2000)

§ Mr. Meacher

By 31 March 1999, energy efficiency in Government Departments had improved by just under 19 per cent. since 1990–91, as measured by the Total Cost Indicator.

Full details for each department are given in the tables. The tables give a summary. All tables include some revisions to figures for earlier years revealing slightly lower performance than previously reported. The last figure announced was 18.1 per cent. to March 1998, but clarification of a misunderstanding with the Navy and data revisions by some other departments have reduced that figure to 17.5 per cent. I expect the figures for 1999–2000, which should be available in the new year, to show that the 20 per cent. has been achieved.

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Energy management in individual Departments is a matter for those departments and their Green Minister. However, the Government aim to be at the forefront of good practice to improve energy efficiency, and progress is reviewed regularly by Green Ministers under my chairmanship. We have developed new performance indicators which will, for the first time, enable comparisons with independent standards of good practice across the economy, and are now beginning to use these for the larger office buildings on the central Government estate. Once the first year's data have been

Summary Table 1 Civil Departments:
Recent performance measured by a range of efficiency indicators (ie per m2); also by total CO₂^1.16
	Performance against energy and cost indicators, relative to 1990–91 (positive figures represent % progress)
	Adjusted for estate and weather changes	Adjusted for weather changes only
	Fossil fuel	Electricity	Total kWh	Total cost	CO₂	Total CO₂
Civil Departments, including Agencies	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99
MAFF—Main Estate⁴	48	52	-11	-11	35	38	14	16	21	23	25	22
MAFF—Laboratories⁴	25	31	8	12	20	26	14	18	24	29	-36	-31
Cabinet Office	15	50	-31	-46	4	26	-13	-8	4	13	-63	-47
Culture, Media & Sport¹⁰	-33	-32	-11	3	-20	-12	-14	-1	-14	-2	-14	-2
Customs and Excise	32	28	-17	-15	14	12	-5	-3	0	2	21	23
Educ. and Employment	28	38	-22	-22	4	9	-13	-11	-9	-7	7	13
Employment Service	23	21	-16	-18	12	10	-2	-4	1	-2	-5	-9
Environment, Transport and Regions⁵	31	43	3	4	22	31	12	16	17	21	37	37
DETR-HSE⁶	39	45	11	13	29	34	19	22	25	27	29	31
DETR-QEII CC^2,6	-7	-14	9	-17	3	-16	7	-17	7	-17	7	-17
FCO	-3	13	-17	-10	-8	4	-13	-4	-4	5	-34	-22
Health⁷	35	17	-83	-105	-10	-30	-53	-75	-39	-59	-21	-38
Home Office¹⁷	17	23	3	-4	13	15	7	5	11	10	9	5
Home Office—Prisons²	10	28	-19	-28	6	22	-2	6	9	20	-7	15
Inland Revenue	-7	17	19	17	3	17	13	17	14	19	31	19
Internat. Development⁹	54	56	36	35	48	48	41	40	42	41	71	71
Lord Chancellor's Department	28	30	1	0	20	21	10	10	13	14	-9	-9
National Savings	16	20	32	32	24	26	29	30	30	31	37	38
Northern Ireland	18	16	12	4	16	12	14	8	15	7	-2	-10
Scottish Office⁸	30	40	-26	-23	16	24	-5	1	7	13	24	29
Scottish Court Service⁸	35	44	30	23	34	38	32	31	34	33	-2	-6
Scottish Prison Service	15	16	-12	-18	12	12	5	3	9	9	-2	-5
Social Security¹¹	17	25	0	-1	12	18	6	9	9	13	-12	2
Trade & Industry	74	74	40	39	62	62	49	49	52	53	69	70
Treasury	-19	-15	-8	-1	-16	-11	-11	-6	4	8	-9	-1
Welsh Office	48	38	-18	-17	19	13	-4	-6	1	-1	21	20
Total	18.0	28.8	1.6	-1.5	14.0	21.3	8.0	10.3	13.1	16.8	6.2	12.2

Summary Table 2 MOD^11,12 and Total Government Estate
Recent performance measured by a range of efficiency indicators; also by total CO₂^1.16
	Percentage reduction relative to 1990–91 (positive figures represent per cent. improvement)
	Adjusted for estate changes and weather correction	Adjusted for weather change only
	Fossil fuel	Electricity	Total kWh	Total costs	CO₂	Total CO₂
Ministry of Defence	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99	1997–98	1998–99
Common User Estate¹³	50	50	-2	-2	33	33	13	13	27	21	11	2
Navy	29	33	37	40	31	35	34	37	37	40	30	38
Army	17	24	26	23	19	24	22	24	24	26	20	21
RAF	26	28	14	11	23	24	19	18	20	20	30	29
Procurement Executive¹⁴	0	4	0	1	0	2	0	1	0	2	0	2
DERA	-27	-29	8	8	-11	-12	1	1	-4	0	-19	-20
MOD Total	21.3	25.7	22.3	21.0	21.6	24.6	21.9	23.0	24.1	24.3	23.3	23.2
Civil Departments Total	18.0	28.8	1.6	-1.5	14.0	21.3	8.0	10.3	13.1	16.8	6.2	12.2
Grand Total	20.3	26.6	15.5	13.6	19.2	23.6	17.5	18.9	20.6	21.9	17.8	19.7
¹ Progress is expressed as a percentage relative to the 1990–91 base year value of the performance indicator in question. Positive figures represent improvement. The standard indicator, against which the target to improve energy efficiency by 20 per cent. by 31 March 2000 is measured, is obtained by weather-correcting energy consumption and converting to costs using "standard prices" for fuel (6p/kWh for electricity and 1.25p/kWh for all fossil fuels) then dividing by floor area. Conversion to money both reflects the relative costs of electricity and fossil fuel and their environmental impact, and the use of fixed prices eliminates the effects of tariff changes which distort the comparison of fuel bills.

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collected and analysed, we will consider how best to use them in the new campaign which began in April this year.

Results for the former Department of the Environment and Department of Transport have been consolidated for earlier years to allow a continuous series for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. DETR's overall performance in 1998–99 has improved relative to the previous year, which was adversely affected by parallel operation of buildings during merger of the former departments.

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² Although figures have been prepared on a consistent basis, caution should be exercised in comparing the energy use of different departments and agencies because of differences in their estate and the nature of their work. For example, the operational needs of prisons and the QEII Conference Centre mean that they have a pattern of energy use which is different from that of a department which has predominantly office accommodation. Expenditure on energy and investment figures are included for information only. Investment figures relate to clearly identifiable energy efficiency measures undertaken by departments. Energy efficiency is an integral part of all major construction projects, including building refurbishment and plant replacement and the figure "0" for some departments does not necessarily mean there has been no investment, just that the investment was not clearly identifiable.

³ The average performance figure for the civil estate cannot be derived by simply adding together the individual departmental progress and dividing by the number of departments because this does not allow for the large variations in consumption. The correct figure is obtained by calculating the value of the performance indicator for the year in question and the base year, for the civil estate as a whole, and calculating the reduction relative to the base year.

⁴ The energy performance for MAFF's "Main estate" and its "Laboratories" continues to improve through on-going investment in energy schemes, monitoring of energy at local level and taking appropriate action as well as central initiatives including continued staff awareness programmes.

⁵ The DETR's figures have been compiled from the former Environment and Transport Departments. The Department now has a greater proportion of air-conditioned buildings than in the base year, because of estate rationalisation, relocation to new HQ buildings and inclusion of some Government Offices for the Regions. Performance in 1997–98 was adversely affected by parallel operation of both old and new buildings while staff moved from one to the other.

⁶ HSE was removed from the DfEE estate on the formation of that Department. QEII Conference Centre is reported separately because of its business-led demands. The initial sharp rise in consumption following the 1990–91 base year was directly attributable to increased revenue earning activity, which has continued throughout the reporting period, ["and the more recent decline in consumption reflects the effect of energy conservation measures undertaken at the site".]

⁷ Rationalisation of the estate since the base year has led to staff moving from several naturally ventilated buildings to more densely occupied air-conditioned buildings, all equipped extensively with information technology equipment. Staff numbers have increased by over 25 per cent. since 1997–98 which has led to a commensurate increase in energy consumption.

⁸ Base year is 1991–92.

⁹ Base year in 1991–92. Data for Natural Resources Institute no longer included following its transfer to the University of Greenwich in 1996.

¹⁰ Base year is 1994–95 by which time energy efficient lighting and other improvements already installed in buildings which are already fully air-conditioned with intensive IT usage.

¹¹ The Ministry of Defence (MOD) estate is different from the rest of the Government estate, and has been undergoing more radical changes. It is therefore treated in a slightly different way. In common with the civil estate, it has greatly increased its use of information technology.

¹² In civil departments, the effect of estate changes is allowed for by dividing consumption by floor area. In MOD, floor area is sometimes not meaningful (eg in relation to security or runway lighting) and also not often available. Estate changes are allowed for by being explicitly excluded from the calculations, ie the energy consumption of new facilities is removed, and for facilities no longer part of the estate, the consumption for the last full year of operation is added back. In most cases, such changes are small compared to the total and can often approximately cancel each other out.

¹³ No 1998–99 data were available for the Common User Estate part of MOD. 1997–98 results are quoted.

¹⁴ It is almost impossible to produce any meaningful results to date for MOD's Procurement Executive (PE) since it has suffered major estate gains and losses over the past 10 years and now consists largely of one recently built large office. The standard MOD methodology produces a meaningless "no change" result (since the present estate is almost entirely different from the original). Consequently, we have taken 1997–98 as the base year and applied the civil departments' methodology to this office.

¹⁵ This shows the combined results for the whole of the Government estate based on the data in tables 1,2 and 3. It is not a simple average of the data, but reflects the proportion of total consumption represented by each part of the estate (see also note 3). Some departments have a different base year, and the individually agreed base year has been used for the purposes of this table, where appropriate.

¹⁶ In some instances the base year is not 1990–91, but for the purpose of this table the agreed base year has been used in the calculation.