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From The Times

May 4, 2007

Spy plane employed to shame owners of heat-loss homes

Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter

Spy-in-the-sky cameras are being used to identify householders who are wasting the most energy and to shame them into turning the central heating down.

Thermal images of homes have been taken by a light aircraft fitted with military spy technology to record the heat escaping from people’s houses.

Maps identifying individual homes have now been placed on the internet to encourage occupiers to reduce their wastage and carbon emissions by fitting insulation and turning the thermostat down.

Haringey Council, in London, has become the first authority in England to place house-by-house thermal maps on the web, after the example of Aberdeen in Scotland.

Making the information available to the public is intended to raise awareness of how much energy is being used needlessly, putting up bills and contributing to global warming.

It is hoped that homeowners with high wastage levels will be shamed into improving the property’s insulation.

Other authorities have shown interest in the spy technology, including Chester-le-Street District Council, which carried out a survey but has yet to put data on the web, and Norwich, which is considering the idea. It is seen as part of the armoury against global warming, which scientists are convinced is worsening because of man-made carbon emissions.

Haringey’s mapping took place on a winter’s night when households were likely to have the heating turned up high.

An aircraft, fitted with a military-style thermal imager, flew over the borough 17 times to take pictures of almost every house in the area.

Footage of heat loss was converted into stills, then laid over a map of the area, before each house was given colour-coded ratings.

Homes that were losing the most heat were represented as bright red on the map. The least wasteful households were shown in deep blue. Shades of paler blues and reds were used to show grades of heat loss.

Officials from the authority shrugged off suggestions of a Big Brother-style invasion of privacy by prying on people’s properties and then publishing the information.

They said that they hoped to use the maps to pinpoint the homes where grants should be offered and to identify empty properties that could be used to lessen the housing shortage.

Isidoros Diakides, a councillor, said: “This single study will play a key role in helping us address three of the biggest issues currently facing Haringey — climate change, fuel poverty and housing waiting lists.

Robert Wilkes, the owner of hotmapping.co.uk, which conducted the thermal surveys, said: “I think it is less intrusive than Google Earth quite honestly.

“It’s not a photograph; it’s merely a measure of heat loss. I think everybody should find it very useful – particularly businesses, schools and hospitals.”

Haringey’s thermal survey took place in 2000, but fresh spy camera flights took place in March. The heat maps will be updated when the new data have been processed.

Almost 60 per cent of a household’s heat is lost through uninsulated walls and lofts, according to the Energy Saving Trust (EST), costing the average home up to £380 each year.

Insulation is estimated to reduce each home’s carbon emissions by about two tonnes annually.

More than half of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions come from the domestic sector, taking into account both homes and transport.

Philip Sellwood, chief executive of the EST, welcomed the initiative to reveal the location of wasteful properties.

He said: “By and large we think it’s a good thing, as long as they are following it up with information and advice.

“If they are just doing it to highlight a problem without offering a solution, that’s no good to anyone.”

Bit of a pointless exercise really and a complete waste of tax payers money.Â We all know that this information (regardless of its credibility) is likely to be ignored.I think the policy makers and general public in the UK should at least be given some perspective on the "carbon footprint" issue.Â A couple of recent trips to the USA really helped me to understand that we in the UK are being hammered when the real contributors (USA, China, India etc.) are continuing flat out.Has the government admitted defeat on the world stage, so now we have to pay at home?Â Come on Mr. Brown, if you really want to change things, get the worst offenders to buy in to reducing their carbon footprint!There are ways to be industrialised AND green.

Andy, Taunton, Somerset

The CO2 emissions of the aircraft in this instance are not really an issue so long as people use the advice as it is intended. Thisd is not spying, it is an honest attempt to help people save money and the environment.

For all the people harping on about the cost of fuel, I challenge them to actually tell me how much they pay per unit of gas, elec and the amount they use each year and how this compares to other households of their size.

If you do not have an insulated roof, you are throwing away £300 per year on wasted energy use are some of you seriously suggesting you are not interested in a saving of that size?

Neill, Nottingham, UK

Unbelievable. Pure fascism at its worst.

Tim S, London,

The councillor is quoted as saying that this farce would help reduce housing wating lists - How exactly?

Did they send their spy planes over the council' own offices. I'd bet that they aren't exactly a model of energy useage.

Doug Whitmore, London,

An aircraft flew over the borough 17 times to gather this information!!!! How much has tt added to lobal warming? I really wonder at the sanity of these individuals!

Chantel, UK,

Doesn't anyone in England learn Physics anymore?

This gadget measures heat emission, not heat loss. To do the latter you'd have to measure energy input as well as energy output.

So if your heating isn't on, the half-wits at Haringey Council will rate you super green.

Strewth!

Gandalf, London,

I'm sure the amount of emissions and energy leakage occuring from urban development far far exceeds the energy required and emissions created to gather data.

Stop trying to find hypocrisy where it doesn't exist. The fact someone decided to do thermal imaging of your urban and suburban areas is a GOOD THING no matter how you look at it. If anything, this work will probably show old government buildings leaking large amounts of heat, wasting your tax dollars, literally burning them, spreading it in the air....

Nicholas Bolibruch, Burlington, Canada

How much of tax payer’s money does it cost to fund this initiative? The planes used are not exactly helping the environment either. Couldn't the money go to support means of reducing carbon emissions rather than shaming house owners? Our Government is shaming us by coming up with such ridiculous measures not vice versa.

James, Usk,

As a Haringey resident, curiosity made me check out my house and street on the Heat Map. If this is military technology, it is very inaccurate. I checked out several unheated lock-up garages near here, and they have different ratings. One actually gets a higher rating than my insulated house. Some of my neighbours seem to be living in igloos - they weren't all away on a CO2-crunching holiday were they? A row of houses built about five years ago, with presumably modern materials, shows average levels - and they are not all the same. Shades of red and blue seem clear enough, but what does yellow mean - no data? This spyware needs considerable adjustment before meaningful conclusions can be drawn.

brian harding, London, UK

What did Haringey do to offset the CO2 emissions from the 17 overflights? Has the survey reduced CO2 emissions from Haringey?

- By the way Alec - we already pay tax on fuel - you can find the rates on the HMRC website under "Current Hydrocarbon Oil Duty Rates" (which also includes gas)

Peter, London, England

Fabulous, I hope the spy plane will be used in Yorkshire soon.
I don't want to spend hundreds on energiy efficent insulation if I am not wasting too much.

Marie A A Parker, Harrogate, UK

Talking cctv cameras, cameras that can track us as we move around, and now spies in the sky. I find it appalling that the government seems increasingly fond of using the tactics of shaming people for acting in ways it doesn't like, even if they (the people) aren't actually breaking any law. By all means discourage anti-green practices by pricing but leave it at that. Energy is already expensive, but if someone decides keeping comfortable in their own home is worth the extra gas or electricity, s/he should be left to do so without being harrassed. Dr Stuttaford, for instance, has warned of the dangers of elderly people not keeping warm enough.

Barry, Wallington, UK

What is next:
checking on households' purchases and shaming those who
purchase too much meat, chocolate, wine and cigarettes?
Who watch more than four hours of televison a day? To call this a return to the middle ages would be to insult the middle ages, for in those more enlightened times people were shamed for doing something illegal.

Dan Andersen, Copenhagen, Denmark

It seems obvious that Haringey council thought their first survey was a huge success since they have carried out a second one, unfortunately, the article didn't mention what, if anything, was actually achieved.

Am I getting old and cynical in thinking perhaps it's just another useless way of wasting ratepayers taxes?

Pat Thornton, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

So if you're away on a long-haul jet holiday and the heating is off when the spy plane flies over, your energy-guzzling mansion is recorded as a model of its kind and you should get a prize!

Smith, Birmingham, England

There are other things that should be done to enhance fuel efficiency:

Tax on boiler spares for boilers that are not condensing
Tax on fuel
Outlawing discounts on big domsestic consumers...

alec morrow, London, UK