Insulation scheme will result in greater gas emissions

THE government's  insulation scheme will result in more energy being used in insulated homes and greater greenhouse gas emissions, an expert  says. 

ONE of Australia's leading authorities on energy and thermal performance in homes predicts that the Rudd government's insulation scheme will result in more energy being used in insulated homes, higher bills and greater greenhouse gas emissions.

Associate professor Terry Williamson, of Adelaide University's School of Architecture and Urban Design, said the insulation industry and the government were wrong in their claims about the environmental benefits from the retrofitting of insulation to more than two million homes.

Kevin Rudd and the Insulation Council of Australia and New Zealand, the peak body representing the manufacturers of 70 per cent of Australia's home insulation, have claimed the national scheme will cut energy use in homes, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deliver direct benefits to the environment.

The Prime Minister said a year ago the energy efficient homes investment would "cut around $200 per year off the energy bills for households benefiting from these ceiling insulation programs" and "reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 49.4 million tonnes by 2020, the equivalent of taking more than one million cars off the road".

Professor Williamson, who has been researching thermal performance since the mid 1970s and written more than 100 papers on the issue, said neither the Rudd government nor the insulation industry could cite a single contemporary peer-reviewed study proving that ceiling insulation cut household energy consumption.

Professor Williamson, whose submission on the lack of evidence of energy efficiency products including insulation was commended by the Productivity Commission, said that insulation usually had a detrimental effect, with evidence to demonstrate that many householders who installed it then strived to gain even greater comfort, prompting them to increase their use of air conditioning or heating, and their overall energy consumption rose.

The phenomenon, well known in the insulation industry but not factored into economic studies, is known as "comfort creep" and the "rebound" effect.

"What people often tend to do is cool one room with air conditioning," Professor Williamson said. "But after they get insulation, they find they can cool more of the house with the same air conditioner by turning it up more."

ICANZ chief executive Dennis D'Arcy has acknowledged a lack of studies proving the benefits are as claimed. ICANZ, which spent millions of dollars lobbying the Rudd government and the Howard government to set up a rebate scheme to get insulation into households, rejects Professor Williamson's findings and views.

However, an ICANZ-Deloitte economic study, which was used to lobby Environment Minister Peter Garrett to set up the rebate insulation scheme, acknowledges that the study's "estimates of energy and greenhouse gas savings do not take into account the possibility of `comfort creep' ".

Professor Williamson said the estimates in the study the government relied on were grossly exaggerated because of the study's failure to include the actual energy use of households after insulation had been installed.