CRC energy efficiency scheme designed to tackle CO2

Large public and private sector organisations are responsible for around 10% of all the UK’s carbon emissions. The CRC energy efficiency scheme is a mandatory cap and trade scheme which caps the amount of energy these organisations can use without having to pay for the additional CO2 they emit. It covers around 2,100 organisations who across all their owned and/or operated sites have an annual electricity spend of circa £0.5m per annum.

The scheme features a range of reputational, behavioural and financial drivers, with the aim of encouraging organisations to develop management strategies that promote a better understanding of energy usage. All qualifying participants including supermarkets, water companies, banks, local authorities and all central Government Departments will have to comply with the scheme otherwise they will face financial penalties.

Exterior blinds have a proven energy saving function. By dynamically insulating the transparent parts of a building, external blinds effectively regulate the suns energy, admitting free solar gain in the winter to naturally warm a building and preventing solar gain in the summer to passively cool, which results in reduced energy use associated with both heating and cooling systems. It is estimated that the energy consumption required for cooling can be reduced by more than 80% with exterior blinds alone. And heat loss through the glazing can be cut by more than 40%.

Just by changing the way we operate items such as lighting and putting into place a Summer and Winter Shading Strategy the Energy Saving Trust estimate that a buildings energy consumption can be reduced by up to 10%.

An annual performance league table ranks all participants in the scheme based on their energy efficiency performance. The first years league table was published on 8th November and can be viewed by clicking here. Manchester United rank best of all the football clubs, Asda of the supermarkets and RBS of the banks.

To find out more about the CRC energy efficiency scheme visit the DECC (Department of Energy Climate Change) website here: www.decc.gov.uk

And to find out more about the energy saving function of exterior blinds just browse through this site which is packed full of useful information, points and facts.