Another nail in the PV Coffin?

[Worcester]

So who benefits most from PV?

Surely the off-gas grid poorly insulated properties, where PV is a quick fix to energy savings / reductions.

Well (and SRE and ourselves will be most affected here) it's about to get worse.

From the beginning of December, the way the EPC using RdSAP is calulated is changing.

The EPC is based not just on the efficiency of the boiler or the insulation levels of the house, it is also adding in the COST of the fuel, and Oil, LPG and Electric have been downrated (i.e they claim the cost has gone up) compared to mains gas. - net effect from December, if you are on any of those fuels, you are likely to lose up to 10 points.

So if you did the calc saying you'll be OK if you add in the PV, and were reliant on that, it may now not be the case, and it may be almost impossible to get the D rating from the beginning of December

:banghead:

Going forward, it has also therefore also removed a large sector of the market from the PV opportunity...

 

[The Solar King]

Just talked to my EPC guy. Is aware of the changes but had not worked out the implications. Is going to come back to me when he has.

 

[whinmoor]

I'm currently having fun in China but went on an EPC upskill course last month.

The biggest change for DEAs is a new requirement to examine (and photograph) the party wall in the loft. This should make the calculation more accurate by assessing whether there's a cavity. Obviously this only applies to terraced or semi-detached houses. But, there's a get-out which allows DEAs to tick an "unknown" option where there's no or conflicting evidence.

 

[SRE]

Not sure how I missed this :-( thanks - I think - for the news! I have a job scraping into a D that's going to be killed stone dead with this unless I get it in before the end of this month - ie next week! How on earth do they work out increased price for oil when it's the cheapest it's been in years!

 

[SRE]

Thought you might be interested. I've been talking to my EPC guy today who seems to think the changes being implemented on the 7th December won't have any impact on heating type because they haven't messed around with that.

He's usually pretty good so I don't know if he's missed it or it's not as bad as we thought. He's doing a comparison for me this week so I'll feed back when I know more.