Sabien calls for energy-saving products enforcement agency

With ever-growing pressure on organisations to cut their carbon emissions, carbon reduction specialist Sabien Technology is calling for tighter regulation and more extensive testing of products that claim to save energy.

Alan O' Brien, CEO of Sabien Technology, warned: “Businesses know they need to step up to meet these tough new carbon reduction proposals but they are quite literally 'fatigued' by propositions from companies who are promising more than they can actually deliver.

“Measuring energy efficiency is more complex than many people realise, and we need an independent 'enforcement agency' to audit and verify suppliers' claims and differentiate between 'low-carbon' and 'cowboy-carbon' products. In particular, it's important to measure changes in energy consumption over longer periods, using tools such as the Carbon Trust-approved CUSUM (Cumulative Sum) analysis method.

“This is how we have proved to many big businesses - including AVIVA, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, BT and 02 - that our M2G technology delivers real savings and we would like to see other technology providers stepping up to the mark,” he concluded.

A recent Which? report claimed that 10 out of the 14 clean tech firms investigated exaggerated the potential savings offered by solar water heaters, and two of the companies said that they could cut energy bills in half, when the real saving was nearer 10%.