The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has appointed a project team of PRP, Peabody and VINCI Facilities to demonstrate novel insulation retrofit approaches in British domestic properties.
The aim is to validate the cost, time and energy effectiveness of domestic retrofits across different house types, using an approach that could be employed to improve the energy efficiency of the vast majority of the existing 26million homes in the UK which will still be in existence by 2050.
It is a demonstration of how the need to make British homes more thermally efficient is at last on the radar in a meaningful way.
Homes and non-domestic buildings are, together, responsible for around 37% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The novel, mass-scale retrofit approach being tested was first developed in a desk-based ETI project (Optimising Thermal Efficiency of Existing Housing) completed in 2012.
PRP will lead a consortium comprising itself and Peabody, one of London’s largest housing associations and community regeneration providers.
The retrofit work will be carried out and managed by VINCI Facilities, a sub-contractor to Peabody. This project is part of the ETI’s wider £100million Smart Systems and Heat (SSH) programme. Aberdeen is among cities participating in this.
The 20-month long £475,000 project will retrofit five types of domestic property, identified and prioritised in the earlier ETI project.
The property types are a pre-1919 mid-terrace house, a pre-1919 detached house, a 1919-44 semi-detached house, a 1945-64 semi-detached house and a post 1980 semi-detached house.
Dr Grant Bourhill, director, Smart Systems and Heat, at the ETI, said: “Improving the thermal efficiency of the UK’s existing domestic housing stock should provide economic, social and environmental benefit. Understanding the practical cost, timescale and effectiveness of
domestic retrofit approaches contributes to our capability to design future-proof and economic local energy solutions, providing comfort to domestic residents while addressing UK energy challenges and targets.
“The outputs from this retrofit project will feed directly into EnergyPath, our local energy system design tool.”
The SSH programme mission is to create future-proof and economical local energy solutions for homes and businesses across the UK.
Given the scale of demand which the domestic housing stock places on our energy system, the ETI says that it is critical for the development of cost-effective local energy systems to validate approaches to improving the thermal efficiency of existing dwellings to potentially reduce domestic energy consumption.
This latest project follows an announcement to develop a modelling framework to assess the economic and social benefits of more energy efficient buildings and local energy system changes.
This followed the announcement in January of the development of the ETI’s EnergyPath software modelling tool, which will be used in the planning of cost-effective local energy systems out to 2050.
Local authorities involved in the development and delivery of the SSH programme include Aberdeen, Bridgend, Cornwall, Greater London Authority (including Camden, Haringey and Islington), Hull, Isle of Wight, Leeds, Leicester, Greater Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield.
