Government 'should push for more zero-carbon homes'

The government should look for more zero-carbon homes to be built straight away if it wants to ensure that housebuilding levels are not jeopardised in future, according to a new report.

The Renewables Advisory Board (RAB) has said that the use of on-site renewables is crucial to the government achieving its target of making all new homes carbon neutral by 2016.

However, unless an industry for such energy sources is built up incrementally, there may be a shortage of supply in nine years' time, the study produced for the RAB by Element Energy has claimed.

"The government's current timescale postpones much of the hard work until 2016, with little opportunity to learn or build capacity in the UK onsite renewables sector in the next eight years," commented chair of the RAB microgeneration working group Matthew Spencer.

"If left unaddressed this could slow house building but we think there are options to overcome this supply gap. This includes using the planning system to require earlier uptake of renewable energy in larger housing developments," Mr Spencer added.

Earlier this week the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) said that the government's eco-towns plans were merely a way of sidestepping the central issue of how to make the country's existing housing stock more energy efficient.

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