Nottingham City Council has secured over £5m to roll out its Energiesprong, ultra-low energy homes pilot, which will include improvements to over 150 Nottingham City Homes’ (NCH) properties
The ultra-low energy homes will tackle some of NCH’s older housing stock that is hard to heat, lifting residents out of fuel poverty. As well as being warmer, the environmental performance of the homes will be greatly improved reducing carbon emissions and improving air quality.
Energiesprong is an innovative, whole-house renovation approach, pioneered in the Netherlands. It upgrades a home with innovative energy-saving and energy-generating measures, which include new highly insulated outside walls and windows, a solar roof, and a state of the art heating system.
The household’s energy demand will be greatly reduced and what energy is needed can mostly be generated on site via smart use of renewable energy technologies.
The model has been further developed and this rollout includes energy efficiency improvements to a city school and a number of homes in Derby managed by Derby Homes.
Melius Homes, who were the successful contractor for the pilot and the rollout tender, will be continuing in their role as principal contractor.
An NCH tenant from the initial pilot, Esther Lutzuver, said: “These homes were really cold before and I dreaded winters. Before the energy efficiency works I was planning on moving as the cold was just getting too much. I really can’t believe the difference the refurb has made.
“Last winter was so much better, me and my family found the house to be really warm and my energy bills have not got more expensive in fact I’m paying less. I’m so happy living here now, I’m no longer thinking of moving, I’ve recently redecorated the whole house and I’m saving up for a new carpet.”
Councillor Sally Longford, the City Council’s Portfolio Holder for Energy and Environment, commented: “As the city’s largest landlord it’s right that we that we tackle energy inefficient homes as all that wasted energy impacts on our climate change ambitions as well as being expensive for our residents.
“We have already achieved a lot through our Greener HousiNG programme and we are determined to do more. Our recently launched Fuel Poverty Strategy sets out a bold vision to build on our successes by embracing new technology and innovations to ensure we do all we can to tackle high energy bills, cold homes and climate change simultaneously.
“We’re very excited that Nottingham is at the forefront of this revolutionary approach, we’re not only improving people’s homes locally, but also helping to shape a new direction for tackling the UK’s coldest homes.”
Melius Homes Managing Director, Rob Lambe, added: “Nottingham City Homes is leading the way in the UK in adopting this transformational approach to whole house retrofit and we’re delighted to be delivering this ground-breaking project.”
The ultra-low energy homes rollout follows a successful UK first pilot which was funded by European Union funding stream Horizon 2020, through a project called REMOURBAN.
