In a written statement to the House on the 10th March 2011, Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change announced the long awaited proposals for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Scheme.

The Government is aiming for this to be approved by Parliament in summer 2011 and introduced shortly thereafter. We asked Andrew Morphet, Managing Director of Energy Consultants, Synergy Property Services Ltd to explain what this is about.

Many people believe that an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is the pair of multi-coloured graphs showing the energy efficiency of a property. To those selling or letting a property an EPC is seen as an un-necessary cost and administrative burden delaying their activity. To prospective home buyers and those renting property they are often simply the final page of the Agents particulars; viewed as being less important than the size of the spare room!

Andrew Morphet of Synergy Property Services Ltd tells us an EPC is an important document that should be helping people make decisions about the house they buy or which office to rent: “Many Estate and Lettings Agents are not much wiser about the nature and content of an EPC than the consumers and clients with whom they interact: This is very frustrating.”

Housing Minister Grant Shapps recently re-affirmed his commitment for all new build homes to be zero-carbon from 2016. He also confirmed the work, carried out last year for the previous Government, in creating the 'Fabric Energy Efficiency Standard'.

Is the timescale realistic and what needs to happen to achieve this? Andrew Morphet of Synergy Property Services Ltd comments:

Shortly after his election, David Cameron pledged to make the coalition the "greenest government ever" saying: "We've got a big, big opportunity here; I want us to be the greenest government ever. It's a very simple ambition and one I'm absolutely committed to achieving.” Almost 3 months later; how’s he getting on?

Housing Minister John Healey recently announced a new Standard for the energy efficiency of zero carbon homes. The new Standard will cover energy demand for space heating and cooling.Synergy Property Services, with its extensive experience, is supporting and guiding efforts to design new, energy efficient homes.

At this year’s Party conferences, the Conservative and Labour Parties appear to have fallen into a wall cavity without insulation on the subject of energy.

For the second consecutive year no one at the Labour Conference uttered the words HIP or EPC. At the Conservative Conference, Grant Shapps restated his Party’s intention to scrap HIPs and their Policy Green Paper No10 – Strong Foundations states that EPCs should not get in the way of being able to market a property and therefore propose moving it to the end of the sale process.

When the going gets tough; the tough get going: Few would deny that the going is tough; so it follows that businesses that are going to come out of this recession successfully will be those that make tough decisions and get going.

One such tough decision is to seek help: Synergy Property Services offers practical, straight forward energy management solutions to cutting energy costs without compromising the business; offering solutions where the saving is guaranteed – not a tough decision at all!

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are a waste of time, money and worse, are actually responsible for increasing the carbon emissions in the UK! Such a stinging statement will surely come as a blow to the Government who have launched the requirement for EPCs as dictated by European legislation.