Article published in Housing Association Building and Maintenance and Sustain (Built Environment Matters) - 1st January 2012
Aspire Housing has made targeted energy savings through a form of technology that has been specially designed to help social housing providers reduce carbon emissions from their housing stocks.
Last year was a year of consecutive price rises for consumers - energy bills increased by 21% or £224, on average. OFGEM and the Sunday Times have respectively predicted further 80 and 100% price increases by 2020. It's clear that rising energy costs and subsequent fuel poverty is quickly becoming a reality for more households than the seven million which are currently subject to it.
The problem extends to the social housing sector which has a responsibility to help tenants, many of whom are economically vulnerable, to avoid paying higher bills for energy. To achieve this, there is mounting pressure for social landlords to invest in retrofit technologies. However, to avoid a scatter-gun approach and ensure that money is being targeted in the right area, organisations need to have a clear understanding of where energy (and money) is being used and how it can be saved.
Aspire Housing's stock includes 8,500 homes and office buildings across North Staffordshire and South Cheshire. It has a long-term goal of reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions across its portfolio. To ensure that their energy saving approach was systematic, they used an Energy Modelling and Mapping (EMM) system which helps social housing landlords to measure, monitor and ultimately reduce carbon emissions.
EMM, which has been designed especially for the social housing sector by Sustain, uses a combination of energy demand data and information such as a property's age, number of bedrooms and the heating and boiler system.
These figures are taken across all stock to provide baseline assessments for each property on a number of key energy efficiency indicators including Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) values, energy consumption, fuel poverty and carbon emissions. The system then goes one stage further to give clear suggestions on how problem properties can be targeted for energy reduction measures.
Working with the housing association, once baseline figures for each property were established, Sustain modelled the impact of a wide range of potential retrofit measures from low cost options, including loft insulation, to more advanced technologies like air-source heat pumps. By combining the baseline and modelled SAP data with costing information, value for money analysis was carried out, showing the cost for each retrofit scenario.
As well as providing the information in a standard database, the manufacturer also used Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software to develop an interactive web-based map. This allowed Aspire's staff to navigate to individual properties and understand where clusters of particularly high or low energy ratings were within the housing stock. The data management function of the system allowed staff to run off their own reports as they were required - e.g. the initial cost of putting in loft insulation against the future benefits for a targeted number of properties.
Strategic development
In addition, the inclusion on the map of specific social
and economic datasets, including fuel poverty, and the Index of
Multiple Deprivation, gave the housing association further
information to guide strategic development. The complete set of
information allowed it to understand the costs and benefits of each
type of retrofit option, ultimately meaning that energy efficiency
improvements were targeted and that Aspire made the most
effective use of limited resources. Tim Edwards, Group Head of
Regeneration at Aspire Housing said: "EMM has assisted the
development of our asset management strategy to treat less
thermally efficient properties. More specifically, it has given us
priorities in terms of where to direct energy advice and support to
households at risk of fuel poverty."
Antony Scott, Senior Associate at Sustain said: "EMM is complete in its approach; it allows modelling, mapping and data management. In addition, the fact that the data is available in a web mapping application is useful as it prevents housing associations from having to purchase costly specialist software to access the data."
"Rising fuel prices are making it more difficult for all consumers, including those who are financially vulnerable, to make ends meet. EMM is a thoughtful and considered approach to energy conversation and one which helps social housing professionals to understand all costs associated with energy improvement strategies before any actual improvement works are carried out."
Further information about Sustain's Energy Modelling and Mapping service.
