An energy efficient house is cheaper to run, cosier to live in and better for the environment. So why haven’t we all embarked on a low carbon refurbishment? Often it’s because we simply don’t know where to start. 

Ecology Building Society has been supporting properties and projects that respect the environment for over 30 years, from sustainable new builds to derelict conversions and community businesses. Recently we launched our C-Change Retrofit mortgage discount which rewards homeowners for saving energy and carbon – for the first time extending our mortgages to owners of ordinary properties who want to make them as energy efficient as possible.  

We know from our members that one of the biggest barriers to undertaking an energy saving refurbishment is the wide range of possible measures that can be installed, and a lack of understanding or confidence in choosing the right options for their homes. That’s why we’ve formed our new partnership with Parity Projects. 

We wanted to provide our members with somewhere to go for detailed, independent advice that wouldn’t cost a fortune, from qualified and experienced surveyors. We’re really impressed with their Home Energy Masterplan service, which provides detailed and costed reports for homeowners, with a range of options from the quick, cheap and easy to a whole house retrofit.

We trialled the Home Energy Masterplan with a housing co-operative in London and found that the detail of the report was really useful in helping the management committed decide how to upgrade their properties. The actions suggested in the report will help to reduce costs for tenants and ensure that future improvements to the properties are based on a sound understanding of energy efficiency. 

We’re launching our partnership with Parity at the same time as our new Shrink This! campaign, which aims to encourage more and more people to reduce the carbon footprint of their properties.  

With the majority of our homes wasting energy, money and carbon, a widespread effort to retrofit our housing stock is essential if we are to meet our national CO2 reduction targets. As a unique provider of sustainable mortgages, we believe we have an important role to play in that challenge – and by working with Parity, we hope to support more and more people to take the next step to save energy at home.   

Ecology Building Society aims to build a greener society through sustainable mortgages, ethical savings, affordable housing and mutual values. For more information visit www.ecology.co.uk.  

It's a strange fact that private clients don't ask us about how our Home Energy Masterplan (HEMP) compares to analyses based on EPCs or SAP.  Perhaps they are very astute or they just don't know the connection.

Contrary to this, organisations who should know better are constantly comparing our HEMP price to the price of an EPC or SAP assessment.  In this blog I'll seek to show whey our HEMP, starting at £290, is great value and why advice based on EPCs or SAP is not good value for money whatever the price - even free.

Blunt Instruments?
I'll start by getting a few things straight - and explaining and apologising for my title.  It's important to realise that EPCs (based on RdSAP) and SAP were never designed to be used to offer advice to individual households. They are supposed to be cost effective ways of benchmarking buildings and we believe they are often unfairly denigrated for not being good at something they aren't meant to do.  We also believe they are pretty good at what they are supposed to do. Why apologise for my title?  Well its falling into the same trap - EPCs and SAP are only blunt instruments when used for something other than their purpose - similar to criticising a cold chisel for not carving wood very well!

Below I'll highlight the reasons why a HEMP is what you need and why you shouldn't compare cold chisels to wood chisels.

How you use your building
As already pointed out RdSAP and SAP are used to be benchmark buildings. They necessarily apply a number of rules about how the buildings are used - especially the heating systems and controls.  Day-in, day-out, we survey properties and each and every one is used differently from how RdSAP and SAP would model them. Often it's the heating times, often the bits of the house that are heated, sometimes it  is secondary heaters, very often its the thermostat settings....the list goes on. Suffice to say if you are heating your house very differently from how it is modelled, the results of any analysis are going to reflect a situation other that yours.

The same thing applies to hot water, lights and appliances.  Whereas these are based on floor area for RdSAP and SAP we actually model how much hot water you actually use and what appliances and lighting you have. We find there is a really big range of hot water use and very wide normal range for electricity use - 3-bedroom houses often range from 2,000kWh pre annum to 9,000kWh (these also effect the heating calcs which is something we also take into account). Its important to add that this detail cannot be carried out in SAP or RdSAP.

Calibration
Even with the best surveying (and customers who try and tell you the truth) bills sometimes tell a different story from what has been modelled. Our process includes collecting annual bills so we can check that the modelling is correct.  50% of the time this highlights something that has been missed - hidden electric underfloor heating or fridge freezers in the shed - so is a good sense check. We then use this data to calibrate the model, partly making informed adjustments, partly adding additional miscellaneous items and party by adjusting the overall losses.  This all helps us get as close as possible to your real situation.

Lights, Appliances and Products
We've packed out software with a wide range of different lights, appliances and products so that firstly your home can be accurately 'built' with what it actually contains and party so that we can analyses lots of different options for you.  Xbox360 in gaming mode - we've got it, woodfibreboard insulation 40mm thick - yep, and also fishtanks, Celcon blocks, recycled cotton insulation......

Fuel prices, tariffs and subsidies
Fuel prices are constantly changing (usually upwards) and at different rates.  We change our prices to match the prices you are actually experiencing (or what you want to guess what prices might be). If British Gas raises its prices 18% - we can reflect that. The inability to model actual prices changes can mean that any calculations can be very inaccurate.

One of the biggest things to impact paybacks at the moment are Feed In Tariffs and the proposed Renewable Heat Incentive.  We model both.  We don't know anyone else who can accurately model what you might expect to get from the Renewable Heat Incentive.  Why not?  Well the payments will be based on your actual use not your use deemed by SAP or RdSAP.  Because we model your building and how you use it really really accurately we therefore are in a great position to model your potential RHI payments too!

If you aren't able to do all this then your analysis is severely limited.

How much will measures cost?
We've packed a database full of prices for a very wide range of measures, and we are constantly updating them.  Prices we provide are based on the surveyed data, not just huge static ranges.  An example is solid wall insulation.  The price will be based on the material, the thickness and the area to be covered.  Another is windows - prices dependent on the number of windows, the size of each and the type of window to be installed.  We can, and often do, override our prices either because you already have a quote or we want to take into account additional information about your situation.

This goes to the heart of what makes our process different.  It has been designed from its inception to offer advice rather then being shoe-horned into attempting to give advice.

There are other aspects too which set the Home Energy Masterplan apart and lead us to get feedback such as 'This is amazing', but I think you probably get the idea.

Just to finish, its worth reflecting that whilst each of the areas above in their own right firstly set the HEMP apart and secondly show weaknesses in using RdSAP and SAP, in reality all of them apply and those weaknesses add up. 

How much can you expect to be paid?

The proposed Renewable Heat Incentive payments are going to be based on how much you actually use - previously solar thermal payments were going to be based on 'deemed' amount but that too will be metered.

To work out whether installing a RHI applicable technology is going to depend on your actual use of it. 

It's all well and good using SAP for Feed In Tariffs for PV as you use of electricity won't affect things to a large degree. However our experience of modelling houses over many years has told us that people's actual heating and hot water bills are often a long way from what SAP predicts. The reasons vary from people using their houses differently to the standard occupancy to unknowns in the building fabric.

Our Home Energy Masterplan is the only product we know where we model your home and how you use it and calibrate it to your bills.  We can therefore model your real heat demand both now and after carrying out various proposed upgrade scenarios.

Wouldn't you like to know accurately how much you can expect under the RHI before you spend £4,000 to £20,000 installing?

Feed In Tariff
As you 'd expect we now model the new Feed In Tariffs in our reports so you can get a true idea of how a solar PV system stacks up against other measures.

Modelling scenarios

These scenarios are not based on detailed industry modelling or analysis, but are instead designed purely to illustrate the potential effect on UK consumers’ fuel bills given various possible FiT supported PV installation scenarios. We believe that Scenarios 2, 3 and 4 are the most likely in the event of an April cut, and that Scenarios 2, 3, 4 and 5 are probably unlikely in the event of a December cut.

 

Scenario 1 – steady state September i.e. the same rate of installation as happened in September month on month.  We believe that this is well below what might have been the actual reality given a reasonably long notice period of April 2012.

Scenario 2 – continued installation with month on month increase rate equal to 90% of the August to September 2011 increase, levelling off somewhat about February

Scenario 3 – continued installation assuming steady month on month increase rate experienced between August to  September 2011

Scenario 4 – steady increase installation to achieve installed capacity ten times the September levels by April 2012 (i.e. a 20% increase each month in the monthly installed capacity)

Scenario 5 – steady increase installation to achieve installed capacity thirty times the September levels by April 2012 (i.e. a 60% increase each month in the monthly installed capacity)

Key notes:

1) These are only the figures to April 2012.  There will be continued increases in costs to households for any installations after April 2012 at whatever level future tariffs are set.

2) These are crude calculations with many assumptions. The basic assumptions are stated in the accompanying spreadsheet. All comments are gratefully received by Parity Projects by email to info@parityprojects.com or on our blog http://www.parityprojects.com/parity-news-blog.html.

3) The PV generation figures are based on a SAP2009 calculation for a south facing roof in London. If average electrical generation is above or below these figures then FIT payments will be higher or lower by a corresponding amount.

4) We have only looked at the FIT payments due to ‘PV retrofit’.   PV retrofit comprised 64% of installed capacity in September.  This means that the total cost to consumers will be above the figures calculated although most of the non PV retrofit capacity will be at a lower tariff.

5) ‘Standalone PV’ is has experienced significant growth in the last few months but any figures relating to standalone are not included in our analysis.

6) There are 4.48 million social housing households.  It is not expected that anything other than a very small percentage of these are in the pipeline for PV installations before April 2012 and that an even smaller percentage would be benefiting from anything other than some free electricity when the installations on their roof were generating due to the FIT being owned by the social landlord.

7) The analysis relates to the ramp up figures if there was to be an April 2012 deadline. Any figures following the announcement of the December 2011 change are not relevant.

Assumptions/references:
Number of UK households - 26,000,000   (Great Britain's housing energy factfile (DECC), October 2011)
Installed PV retrofit capacity to end September 2011-11-06 - 202,585kWp   (DECC)
Other historic installed capacity   (DECC)
Average FIT rate used for PV retrofit capacity - 43p per kWh
Wholesale price of electricity used - 8p per kWh
Estimated % PV generated exported - 50%
Effective FIT rate passed onto consumer- 39p per kWh
Annual per kWp installed - 826kWh             (SAP)
Annual kWh based on September capacity - 167,335,210 kWh
Annual cost per household by end of September 2011 - £2.51