Policy Initiatives - PPS22

In many ways, the requirements of Planning Policy Statement 22 are good news for developers wishing to use electric heating.

Many planning authorities have or intend to implement a 10% renewables requirement for major developments although the requirements of this will vary between 'energy use' and 'carbon emissions' from authority to authority.

Improved Building Fabric = Lower Energy Use

As discussed in the Part L (see: Building Regulations > Part L > Part L1A – New Dwellings) section of this website, specifying electric heating requires buildings to have higher levels of thermal insulation compared to other fuels in order to demonstrate Building Regulations compliance.

This means that the total energy requirement for the building (kWh/yr) for electric will be lower than other fuels, so where renewables targets are based on primary energy use, the required capacity contribution from renewables will also be lower and therefore more easily and cost-effectively achieved.

Renewables as a Part L Compliance Option

As discussed in the SAP (see: Building Regulations > SAP > SAP and Part L compliance) section of this website, intelligent use of renewable solutions in combination with the block assessment compliance method can provide an extremely cost-effective route to Part L compliance.

For example by using solar thermal panels to provide water heating for the top floor flats only makes installation of the system straight forward as wells as significantly reducing the average carbon emission for the entire block.

Where the integration of renewables into the building is an obligatory requirement for planning, this route to Part L compliance becomes a 'no-cost option', as the requirement for a contribution from renewables exists irrespective of the fuel type being used.

Heat Pumps

Planning policies generally tend to state that a proportion of energy from the entire site be provided by renewables, providing the flexibility to provide a small contribution from each dwelling / building or a larger amount from some buildings and less or none from others.

For sites where there is a combination of houses and flats, Dimplex heat pumps can provide a solution, for example to provide heating and hot water for houses or ground floor flats where they are easier to apply, thus providing an energy / carbon trade-off site wide. It is also possible to use multiple large capacity heat pumps (such as Dimplex SI ZS range) to provide heating for multiple dwellings, for example within a block of flats.