Google, the world’s biggest internet company, has launched a campaign to promote the widespread use of alternative energy technologies and to implent stricter building codes across the United States.

October’s Energy Expo at London Olympia showed that various technologies are becoming embedded in the mainstream. Ian Grant reports on the new trends.

Government should treat micro-generation and renewable heat technologies as being as important as large-scale electricity generation, a House of Lords committee has recommended.

The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers has decided to promote the National Engineering Specification with the Amtech Group which acquired the software packages Specification Expert and O&M earlier this year.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has dismayed sustainability circles with a report which points out how long it can take to repay the cost of some home energy saving devices.

The Carbon Trust has launched a guide for retailers to increase the energy efficiency of display lighting which could save up to 30% of their lighting costs.

Tidal power could make Scotland the “green energy capital of Europe according to its environment minister Michael Russell who was speaking at the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy project in New York where two new turbines are being installed in the East River.

DCLG has published a new guidance booklet Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and Renting Homes: A Landlord’s Guide to give advice to landlords who wish to rent homes to new tenants after 1 October.

Businesses which invest in energy microgeneration will no longer see an automatic triggering of business rate reassessment and higher bills under amendments to legislation published by DCLG.

Progressively enhancing building regulations to the point where all new homes are “zero carbon” from 2016 could generate carbon reductions between 2.62 and 3.16mt/y
by 2020 but could initially increase current build costs between 17 and 24%.