The Economics of Energy Conservation

[drplokta]

They've just finished an eight year programme to refurbish a social housing estate near us, and bring it up to modern levels of energy conservation. http://www.24dash.com/socialhousing/20852.htm for details. The highest annual fuel cost saving they have seen was £278 -- let's be generous and say the average was £200 per household. There are 186 properties on the estate. So the total annual saving is around £37,200 and it will take nearly 300 years to pay back the capital cost. Retrofitting the housing stock to meet modern standards of energy conservation is not worth doing. (If you're concerned about global warming, I think it safe to say that the same amount of money invested in carbon sequestration would have removed a lot more CO² from the atmosphere.)