Cllr Blackwell wrong on energy meters

Cllr Theo Blackwell (Lab, Regent's Park) recently wrote in the CNJ that “energy metering would be a retrograde step in council blocks.” Wrong again, Theo. If council tenants and leaseholders are to play their part in the battle against climate change, as many of them would like to, then they must be given the incentives and the controls to do so. Currently, if a flat is too hot in winter the only way to cool it down is to open the window and release the heat out into the atmosphere. That’s crazy. All flats must have heating controls and meters.

The Camden Sustainability Task Force made this point very clearly in our first report on Energy and Energy Efficiency. We want to see housing estates turned into energy hubs supplying themselves and the surrounding neighbourhood with electricity and heat using extremely efficient Combined Heat and Power (CHP) district heating systems. The Executive agreed and estates where the boilers need replacing should now get CHP in due course.

But this makes absolutely no sense unless we give tenants and leaseholders the ability to control how much energy they use. The unit cost should end up being less than the private utilities would charge because Camden buys gas in bulk and because we will look at whether other fuels like waste wood or biogas from food waste could be used. The total cost to a household will depend on how much energy they use but with controls and meters they will clearly have an incentive to minimise energy wastage and therefore carbon emissions. And anyone in living in serious fuel poverty will continue to receive assistance as they do now.