Energiesprong UK

"Driving meaningful change in the retrofit sector requires prioritising trust as a foundation for collaboration [and] relational factors—such as empathy, integrity, and shared goals—are crucial for fostering successful partnerships." As part of our Innovate UK #TransformER project to tackle retrofit's biggest barriers, we issued an industry-wide questionnaire last year to gauge current perceptions of collaboration and levels of trust in the sector. Culture change lead Stéphanie Ah Tchou has spent time diving deep into the results to create a research paper that will help us inform the design of a culture change programme. Check out our top 5 high-level insights below and in the carousel! You can also find a link to a blog with further detail in the comments, and we've re-opened the survey so you can have your say too. *Please note these insights are based on a small sample size and represent only the views of the people who answered the questionnaire. We do not claim they paint an objective view of the state of the industry.* 1?? Building trust requires more than just technical capability 2?? Relationships between people ‘make or break’ successful partnerships 3?? Multiple factors influence enjoyable working relationships 4?? Rethinking ways of working could address systemic challenges 5?? Strengthening shared goals and values across organisations is essential. Ambue BRE Bow Tie Construction KIN MTC - Manufacturing Technology Centre Planarific Tallarna Tata Steel UK Ultrapanel Building Technologies VundaHaus Alex Whitcroft Rowley Maggs Ele George Rebecca Hart National Retrofit Hub #Retrofit #CollaborateToInnovate #EnergyEfficiency #NetZero

Could finding retrofit’s "sweet spot" help resolve the ‘fabric first vs fabric fifth debate’? Our Programme Director Ronan Leyden joined a Futurebuild panel yesterday to explore insights from Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (ESNZ)’s #HeatPumpReady (HPR) programme. He focused on our HPR project, which explored creating an integrated billing service for our Comfort Plan? cost recovery mechanism – designed to enhance the business model for retrofit and reduce the funding gap. Ronan explored the concept of finding the optimum retrofit ‘sweet spot’ for different homes depending on their specific circumstances (including baseline performance, resident behaviours and who is paying for it). This is the ideal point where fabric is improved just enough to support the efficient operation of a right-sized heat pump with solar PV and battery. As he puts it, “voilà, paybacks!” And once you have paybacks, you have an investment proposition to leverage 3rd party finance. He was delighted to share the stage with some other incredible innovators including: ?? Kestrix’s Lucy Lyons presenting its smart data solution, with EDF (UK)’s Katharine Baker sharing how it’s been trialling it to enhance the customer journey for retrofit. ?? Our friend Richard Barwick MCIOB, AECB highlighting outcomes from our joint work?to develop optimised standardised whole house solutions for four non-traditional archetypes to reach net-zero goals and improve tenants’ lives.?We're looking forward to hearing more about Octopus Energy Zero Bills for retrofit application in Kent as and when it goes live! ?? Stay tuned for more insights into our Comfort Plan work and insights from the work with R.J. Barwick on archetyping! #Retrofit #BuildingPerformance #Solar #HeatPumps Anna Mroz Rebecca Hart

“But, how do we pay for it?” If this is a question you hear (or ask!) a lot in reference to home energy upgrades at scale, then this Futurebuild panel round-up is for you! Our Dr. Zachary Gill shared a stage with fellow finance fanatics to explore the critical question of whether retrofit is ???????????????? investible. ?? ???????????????????? ???????? ?????? ?????????? chaired by Sero's Andrew Sutton ?? Green Finance Institute's Ryan Jude & National Wealth Fund's Jeremy Barker shared that there are billions in finance available for retrofit (you could feel the excitement in the crowd!) The challenge is getting the?funding models right to unlock it. Jeremy explained that?finance?is like a mortgage, and?funding?is the ability to repay that mortgage borrowing! ??? Chris Brown shared Climatise's approach for the private sector - buying Victorian terraced houses and retrofitting them to an Octopus Energy Zero Bills standard. The investment is then recouped through directly increased sales value (and then some). ?? Zack presented our Comfort Plan? model for the social housing sector whereby a proportion of the landlord’s capital outlay is recovered via a simple monthly charge to residents. This is all underpinned by monitoring, measurement and performance guarantees. We raised the need for government, industry, and finance institution collaboration to: ? ?? Review and update rent cap flexibility (and/or introduce service charges) proportionate to performance guarantee retrofit measures ?? Reduce the spark gap to incentivise the electrification of heat ?? Introduce flexible grant funding mechanisms that focus on the?outcomes?of retrofit rather than individual measures ?? Develop alternative funding mechanisms to overcome fuel poverty issues and underheated homes (approximately 15% of social housing!) that would not benefit from a Comfort Plan?. ?? ?????????? ???????? ?????? ???????????????? ??? The audience agreed that the language of retrofit needs changing and we agree (hence why we talk about "comfort") ?? The audience also questioned the need for whole house retrofit vs a staged approach and panellists agreed that both can work and we simply need to be getting on with everything that we can. We need to get those funding models working to access the finance pots available, and deliver demonstrable high-performance retrofit projects. ? And as long-standing champions of collaboration, we were delighted to hear audience member Haig Housing's Dan Gatenby BSc (Hons) usefully note that if the panellists worked directly together, there was a clear delivery vehicle for scaling up retrofit right there! Stay tuned for more insights into our Comfort Plan??model very soon! #EnergyEfficiency #Finance #Retrofit #NetZero #ComfortPlan The Retrofit Academy

"We're not looking to spend 5 minutes with you, we're looking to spend the better part of a decade with you!" This was Dr. Austin Entonu, MBE, MBA, FACCA, PRINCE2 and CFA's rallying call to attendees at one of yesterday's #NationalRetrofitConference Futurebuild panels. Outlining London's net-zero 2030 ambition, it explored what needs to happen to create a market that delivers high-quality, cost-effective home energy upgrades to support this mission. The term ‘upgrade’ has been chosen specifically to resonate more with residents than ‘retrofit’. ? Highlights included: ? ?? ?????????????? ?????? ?????????? ???????? Greater London Authority's ???????????? He explored the common barriers in the market - from lack of capacity and capability, complex procurement and limited funding to supply chain challenges. ? The GLA is creating a strategic approach with five pillars - coordinated strategy, increased funding and financing, strengthened supply chain, data quality and innovation and access to technical assistance and guidance. ? But none of these alone is enough. We need action across all of them and commitment from all stakeholders to build a market together. Hence the rallying call! ? ?? ???????????? ???????? ???????? ???????????????? ???????? London Councils Hannah Jameson Hannah outlined the recently launched Warmer Homes London programme which is turbocharging the installation of insulation, solar panels and heat pumps for the capital's most vulnerable residents. ? She emphasised its active approach to learning by designing solutions through delivery. This includes an emphasis on achieving high performance, aggregating archetypes and creating a visible pipeline for the supply chain. ?? ?????????????????????????? ???????????????????? ???????? ?????? Emily Braham Emily highlighted how we’re working with partners to catalyse the change required across the home energy upgrade market to make retrofit-at-scale a reality. This includes innovating through our Innovate UK funded #TransformER project, demonstrating an archetype-led approach with London Councils through Warmer Homes London and then accelerating impact through the Mayor of London’s #ZeroCarbonAccelerator, led by Mott MacDonald (ZCA). Through ZCA, we're supporting landlords to innovate finance models - helping them understand how third-party finance can be structured, considering issues such as on balance sheet / off balance sheet, and how to realise revenue for paying back finance, while saving residents money. Through Transform-ER, we're enabling the retrofit market to scale to 1m homes / year - focusing on demand by using data in a better way to create pipelines of properties based on archetypes, developing kits of parts retrofit solutions for faster roll-out and bringing this all together in a vehicle that adopts new alliancing approaches to increase collaboration! Check out the links in the comments to find out more about all the projects mentioned above! #Futurebuild2025

Excited to announce we have joined the Healthy Homes Hub! It's a natural fit for us as our mission has always been catalysing outcome-led retrofit for desirable, comfortable, net-zero homes that perform as designed. Check out Healthy Homes Hub's fantastic work here: https://lnkd.in/dnA63b23

What are our reflections on the recent #EPC reform consultation? In short, ?? Goodbye EPCs. ? Missed opportunity to address real-world performance. ?? There's a need to recognise the value of data being collected. Flick through the carousel below to dive deep into thoughts from our in-house #NetZero nerds Matthew Wood and Dr. Zachary Gill - or check out the full blog in the comments! #EPCs #EPCReform #EnergyEfficiency #Retrofit #BuildingPerformance

?? Just one day to go 'til #Futurebuild2025. Check out our sessions below - hope to see some of you there as we dive deep into what's need to make retrofit at scale a reality!

?? Check out our top 3 reflections on the EPC reform consultation! The UK Government has recently run a consultation on reform of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). National Retrofit Hub has shared its response and we broadly agree with it. Here are our 3 key thoughts on the proposals: ?? Goodbye EPC ratings Perhaps the biggest proposed change that most people will see is to move away from a single metric/score to have multiple metrics. This is a good thing. The new EPCs will have a number of different metrics (to be decided), but likely to include: cost, carbon, fabric efficiency, heating system and “smart readiness”. This clearer labelling will force policymakers to choose the appropriate metric for the outcomes they want to achieve rather than trying to use a single metric most people don’t understand for everything. ?? Incorporating real-world performance Real-world energy performance is not addressed in the proposals, which is a missed opportunity. Incorporating real-world performance into EPCs could greatly improve their accuracy. Real-world performance data can also manage expectations about energy savings. This is crucial for policymakers to consider when funding retrofit measures, ensuring investments lead to desired outcomes in terms of carbon emissions and climate change mitigation. ?? Improving the quality of EPCs The other main concern about EPCs is the quality of the assessment. EPCs can be wildly inaccurate. What we need to do, and government needs to embed into policy, is recognise the value of the data being collected. It should be seen as the first step in the process of improving properties to meet our fuel poverty and carbon targets, giving valuable insight into what measures the property needs to achieve those goals. Read the full reflections by our in-house energy performance and net-zero experts Matthew Wood and Dr. Zachary Gill by clicking below! #EPCs #EPCReform #EnergyEfficiency #Retrofit #BuildingPerformance

??? Why is #TransformER looking at new contracting and alliancing approaches for unlocking retrofit at scale? Our Emily Braham shared how we're taking inspiration from successful, forward-thinking models in a recent Healthy Homes Hub podcast. Alongside project partner Ambue's Neil Hooton, she explains why alliancing approaches that incentivise a problem-solving mindset - like Heathrow T5 and Project 13 - are central to our development of a new retrofit delivery model. At the heart of it all is culture change - both shared profit and risk across the supply chain. This created a ‘no blame’ culture where the parties were incentivised to find solutions for problems jointly, rather than to protect their own commercial interests. Find the link to the podcast in the comments and let us know what you think! 13 partners. 18 months. 1 mission. The Innovate UK funded Transform-ER (Transform.Engage.Retrofit) project aims to revolutionise the sector to enable 1m home upgrades every year by 2030. #MakingHousingBetter #Decarbonisation #SocialHousing #NetZero #Sustainability Jenny Danson Lee Reevell

?? We'll be at Futurebuild 2025 sharing insights into unlocking #retrofit at scale - from values-led collaboration and new alliancing approaches to innovative financial models and implementing low-carbon technologies. ?? ???????? 4 ?????????? 12:00 - 12:45: Our Emily Braham will join London Councils Hannah Jameson and Greater London Authority's Dr. Austin Entonu, MBE, MBA, FACCA, PRINCE2 and CFA & Megan Life - sharing highlights from our Innovate UK #TransformER project and involvement with Mayor of London's #ZeroCarbonAccelerator. ?? ???????? 5 ?????????? 10:30 - 11:15: our Ronan Leyden will join EDF (UK)'s Katharine Baker, Kestrix's Lucy Lyons, Richard Barwick MCIOB, AECB and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero's Anna Mroz to share insights from our Heat Pump Ready programme projects. 16:15 - 17:15: our Dr. Zachary Gill will join Sero's Andrew Sutton, Chris Brown, National Wealth Fund's Jeremy Barker and Green Finance Institute's Ryan Jude to share our approach to cost recovery with outcome-led, performance guaranteed retrofit. Let us know if you'll be there in the comments - and find a link to register! #Futurebuild2025 #HeatPumps #EnergyEfficiency #NationalRetrofitConference The Retrofit Academy