NO NET ZERO PLANNED FOR GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS IN WHITEHALL.
If King Charles 3 is in the market for ironies, all he will need to do is peer out of his emission-free carriage (barring the odd whiff of methane) on his coronation day as it goes through Horse Guards Parade on his way to the Abbey. Buildings to either side, owned by the Ministry of Defence, are part of a group of 18 which includes No.10 and the Civil Service Club, which are supplied with heat and power from a gas-fired power station in the bowels of the Ministry of Defence. Driven by a massive gas turbine capable of producing 4.7Mw of electricity and 9Mw of heat, it was fully commissioned in 2005, just as Tony Blair was working up an energy policy that threatened to turn the lights out all over the UK. Although normally fired by gas, it is a dual-fuel system, with the ability to run on 35 sec oil during supply interruptions. Thus, Mr Sunak and his successors can count themselves as fortunate when, as will probably happen, the nation’s power system shuts down. In fact, the lights at 10 Downing Street will remain bright and the radiators warm, even should the gas supply fail, as the system can be rapidly switched over to burning oil, while the rest of us shiver in darkness. With not a heat pump or solar panel in sight, much less a wind turbine, the government was under gentle scrutiny from Lord Birt last year, who asked what plans the government had to decarbonise the heating of buildings accommodating government departments on and close to Whitehall was told it was under “review”.
