Open Source Content Management

The 2011 US Solar Decathlon — which challenges university teams of architects, engineers and students to design houses powered by the sun — kicks off on September 22 this year. Below is a video walkthrough of the design from one of the competing institutions, Appalachian State University. You can check out video walkthroughs for all the projects here, read about them all here, and get regular updates on Facebook and Twitter too. Construct Ireland previously took a detailed look at some of the buildings that competed in the 2009 US Solar Decathlon. 

The first ever European Solar Decathlon was held in Madrid last year, with an American college emerging as the winner. We also published an extensive profile of one of the entrants to that competition, the Nottingham House, in the magazine. 

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Is it possible to ditch fossil fuels and run a 1970s Irish bungalow on solar energy? Norman McMillan’s renovated A1-rated bungalow in Carlow proves it is. 

A new house in west Cork offers a green vision for the future of Irish home building: not only is it A-rated, airtight and highly energy efficient, it’s built with ecological materials that are manufactured in Ireland too.

Here's our usual round up of interesting links — have a good weekend everyone. The new issue of the mag goes to print next week. 

Buried Treasure — a look at former Man United captain Gary Neville's underground house Michelle Kaufmann

Brace yourselves for the next oil price shock Energy Bulletin

Would you like to cover your house in "solar ivy"? Inhabitat

School built in four weeks from recycled shipping containers following earthquake Treehugger

Where are most of Ireland's vacant houses? Ireland After Nama

Advisers say UK government should force energy companies to insulate homes Guardian

Are these the top ten green building products of 2011? Jetson Green

Eight reasons for the growth of the passive house standard Jetson Green

Here's our usual round up of links that might be of interest:

To the surprise of many, Opec decides not to raise its oil production CNN

The British government appears to recognise that global oil supply will fall behind demand in the next five years Energy Bulletin

New uses for Dublin's derelict public buildings? Ireland After Nama

The Velux Sunlighthouse claims to be Austria's zero carbon and energy neutral house Inhabitat

Steve Jobs reveals Apple's plans for a new spaceship-shaped campus with lots of green space Inhabitat

Calculating the global warming impact of different insulation materials Green Building Advisor

Profile of an "affordable" passive house in Canada Green Building Advisor

An in-depth look at the deep energy retrofit of a Boston apartment block Metropolis Magazine

Can an entire house be recycled? CS Monitor

SEAI's Brian Motherway (left), energy minister Pat Rabitte (centre) and the Department of Energy's Stjohn O'Connor launch the government's Better Energy upgrade programme on 11 May.

Earlier this month, energy minister Pat Rabbitte announced an "additional" €30M in government funding for building energy upgrade programmes for 2011. The government said the funds would "support an additional 2,000 jobs in 2011". These figures were reported largely without criticism in the national media. But they appear to be quite dubious, as our series of blog posts over the last few weeks has shown. Here's why:

The government claims the €30M in funding is additional to the money the previous government had committed to energy upgrades for 2011 (€60M). But the previous Fianna Fáil—Green government also announced a tax relief on home energy efficiency upgrades in Budget 2011, and this has yet to be introduced. The total value the last government pledged to fund the energy efficiency tax relief? €30M.

The tax relief will only be introduced if the minister for finance, Michael Noonan, signs a commencement order. The Department of Finance told Construct Ireland that it cannot state when or if the order will be signed. Commencement orders for budget measures sometimes remain unsigned for years — or forever.

Construct Ireland suspects the commencement order will remain unsigned, and that the €30M tax relief will quietly slip away. If we're correct, the government's claim to be putting an "additional" €30M into Better Energy is dubious. The tax relief may not have been part of that programme, but it was nonetheless an investment in making buildings more energy efficient.

We asked the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (DCENR) how the 2,000 jobs figure was calculated. It replied:

The number of jobs is derived from the additional monies allocated by the government which we know will leverage similar levels of private funding in what are labour intensive works and based upon the typical wages in the sector.

But if the money isn't really "additional", neither are the jobs. After all, the tax relief would have created jobs too. What's more, the 2,000 jobs figure does not appear to take into account potential job losses from the withdrawal of grants for heat pumps and biomass boilers — Construct Ireland is already hearing about companies losing work due to these grants being pulled.

We also emailed DCENR asking why it withdrew grants for some renewable technologies while maintaining support for oil and gas boilers, but a spokesperson did not address the question directly, and simply said:

The grant available for a new oil or gas boiler only represents a contribution to the additional cost incurred by the homeowner in choosing a high efficiency boiler (i.e. >90% efficiency) versus the standard required by the building regulations (i.e. >86% efficiency). The homeowner must also install heating controls in order to avail of the €160 subsidy.
 

Earlier this week we sent three questions to the Department of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources (DCENR) on the government's Better Energy building upgrade programme. Here's how they responded:

CI: Has the proposed tax relief on energy efficient works for homeowners that was announced in Budget 2011 been scrapped? 

DCENR: The tax relief announced in Budget 2011 is subject to a commencement order, which at this point has not been brought forward by the Minister for Finance.  

CI: The press pack that accompanied the launch of Better Energy said the government had previously set aside €60m for energy efficiency upgrades in 2011. But the budget set aside €69.252m for capital expenditure for "sustainable energy programmes". Was the €60m figure a typo?

DCENR: The original budget allocation for retrofit was around €60 million for capital works with the balance set aside for current.

CI: How was the department's estimate that the "additional" €30m funding for 2011 would create an extra 2,000 jobs calculated? Did this figure take into account any potential job losses from the withdrawal of grants for heat pumps and biomass boilers?  

DCENR: Applications for heat pumps and biomass boilers have declined considerably in recent months with applications in these areas representing in the order of 10% of the total applications received. This was factored into our calculations.

Note: We would presume it is now highly unlikely there will be any commencement order for the €30m tax relief referred to in question one — this makes it potentially dubious for the government to claim it is putting an additional €30m into Better Energy. As you can see, our query as to how the 2,000 jobs estimate was calculated was largely ignored.