British Gas New Energy will offer rooftop solar heating panels and give customers the chance to offset their CO2 emissions. The unit will also have 500 engineers trained to carry out assessments for Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), which from 1 June will be a legal requirement for householders to present when selling their home.

British Gas has also formed a partnership with some local authorities in the UK, which will offer council tax discounts of up to £500 to householders who install solar panels.

Managing Director of the New Energy Unit, Gearóid Lane, previously Director of Energy Procurement at parent company Centrica said, “We have reason to believe that in market turnover terms, this space will be worth several billion pounds a year in the next few years.” British Gas said demand for microgeneration technologies alone might be worth approx £1 billion annually in another five years.

A company statement said, “Overall the future UK market for domestic energy efficiency products, including microgeneration and energy efficient boilers, EPCs, loft and cavity wall insulation, has the potential to be worth several billion pounds per annum as awareness of the need for energy efficiency increases.”

Centrica is working with UK company Ceres Power to develop a domestic-scale fuel cell boiler that it estimates could halve CO2 emissions from a household. Lane said, “We don't have the absolute blueprint for taking these to manufacture, but we're in late stage development. You won’t see something later in 2007, but you won't have to wait four or five years.”

Sam Laidlaw, Chief Executive of Centrica said, “We are already the biggest supplier of green electricity to UK homes and have the lowest carbon intensity of any UK energy supplier.” British Gas has the lowest carbon intensity of any of the major UK energy suppliers in terms of tonnes of CO2 emitted per unit of electricity supplied to customers.

Centrica is investing £750 million in renewable power generation, principally offshore wind and is currently constructing the Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farm off the Lincolnshire coast which is larger than any other current UK wind farm. Centrica is also developing a project to construct a ‘clean coal’ power station on Teesside, which will use carbon capture and storage technology.

Further information:

British Gas Press release http://www.britishgasnews.co.uk/index.asp?PageID=16&Year=2007&NewsID=710

http://www.cerespower.com/

Source: Ecofys UK Newsletter 08/05/2007, Planetark 20/04/07, All Energy News 30/04/07, British Gas 19/04/07