asked the Chairman of Committees:

What progress has been made on plans to use biofuels as part of the energy mix to heat the House of Lords' portion of the parliamentary estate. [HL1412]

There are currently no plans in place to use biofuels as part of the energy mix to heat the House of Lords’ portion of the parliamentary estate. The boilers that generate heating to the buildings consume natural gas and there are presently no alternative piped supplies. It is theoretically possible to generate methane gas onsite by passing organic waste through an anaerobic digester but this has been determined as impracticable for the parliamentary estate, mainly because of the small quantity of organic waste arising from the kitchens and the lack of space to locate a digester. For future boiler replacement, biomass systems will be considered as part of a range of sustainable options.

asked the Chairman of Committees:

Whether the option of employing heat pump technology, using the River Thames, has been investigated for a potential contribution to the heating system of the House of Lords' portion of the parliamentary estate. [HL1413]

Recent studies considering all sustainability options for the building services of the palace discounted the option of using heat pump technology from the River Thames for the primary heating to the palace. This was principally because the means of distributing the heat around the palace is by steam, which would be very difficult and disproportionately uneconomic to generate using heat pump technology.

When there is a need for a major overhaul of the heating and cooling infrastructure of specific buildings on the parliamentary estate, it is intended to investigate the potential viability of utilising any of the available forms of sustainable energy technologies, and the option of employing heat pump technology is one that would be included in the study.