How Energy Bills are Shaping Retrofit Priorities

The task of decarbonising social housing stock across the UK still has a huge number of unanswered questions. That’s not to say they’re unanswerable – it’s just that it’s a complex problem with a lot of variables.

At a smaller scale, we know how to retrofit individual homes to net zero carbon standards. These retrofit models can be applied at a larger scale so that housing providers can have working estimates for budgeting and timing purposes.

Net zero carbon remains the goal for 2050 (or hopefully sooner), but there are urgent priorities to consider too:

Changing Lives

Not least of these priorities is the need for social housing to achieve a minimum of EPC level C by 2030. In itself, this isn’t a trivial task. But the benefits for many residents will be substantial – maybe even life changing.

The cost of living crisis and rising fuel bills are creating genuine hardship for many social housing residents. Local authorities and housing providers recognise that they have an opportunity to do something about this by bringing forward home insulation programmes.

Energy bills for many people went up by £700 per year with the increase in the energy price cap. There’s little prospect of bills coming down substantially even in the medium term.

How Much Will People Save?

Putting an exact figure on how much residents will save through energy efficiency upgrades is difficult. It depends on the type of property as well as the behaviour of the occupants.

But it’s not unreasonable to think that upgrading from EPC ‘E’ to EPC ‘C’ could leave over £100 extra in household budgets per month. Or it might simply mean that all residents can afford to heat their homes to a healthy level.

So, it’s not surprising that many social landlords are choosing to focus on installing better insulation now, with other net zero measures such as heat pumps and solar PV to follow after 2030.

Osborne’s approach is based on flexibility. We can deliver deep whole-home retrofits or adopt a phased approach across the entire stock that initially prioritises energy efficiency. Whatever approach works best we make sure that actions don’t lose sight of the longer term net zero objective.

For ideas about how to approach zero carbon retrofit at scale visit our resource centre or contact Nick Davidge ([email protected]).