Organisation set to upgrade 500 homes in £200m work programme
The Energiesprong UK consortium has secured €3.6m of government Horizon 2020 grant funding to roll out the innovative Dutch Energiesprong housing refurbishment approach.
The organisation is now expected to go out to tender later this year for a £200m work programme, upgrading around 500 homes to net-zero energy status. The homes will belong to the consortium’s housing association partners, with the retrofits costing around £40,000 each.
At the heart of Energiesprong is a net-zero energy performance guarantee, whereby the contractor signs up to contractual undertakings on the long-term energy consumption for space heating and hot water.
Guaranteeing the performance of the improvements over a long-term (minimum 30-year) period provides financial security to the property owner — likely to be a housing association — while the contractor will be able to harness economies of scale. This “energy performance guarantee” is seen as one way the industry can start to bridge the performance gap (p 12-15).
“I’m looking forward to working with the Energiesprong partners to challenge the ‘business as usual’ approach.”
Arno Schmickler, Energiesprong UK
Suppliers will be encouraged to design and engineer new solutions with their supply chain partners. The resulting innovation drives down the cost of the solution.
Although contractors Wates Living Space, Willmott Dixon and Mears have been supporters of Energiesprong UK, it’s understood the organisation will look beyond this list to find its construction partners.
Commenting on the grant, programme director Arno Schmickler said: “Thanks to European funding, Energiesprong will open up a scalable net-zero energy refurbishment market for UK businesses. Creating desirable, warm and affordable homes provides a unique opportunity to transform homes and communities.
“I’m looking forward to working with the Energiesprong partners to challenge the ‘business as usual’ approach and I’m excited that a number of forward-thinking housing providers and industry leaders are already committed to making net-zero energy refurbishments a reality in the UK.”
Energiesprong UK says that it hopes to “mobilise the construction sector to revolutionise its existing retrofit building processes through the development of stronger supply chain integration, product-focused collaboration and industry-led innovation”.
The EU grant, spread over the next three years, will be used to kick-start net-zero refurbishment markets in the UK and France, using the social housing sector as a catalyst. In the Netherlands the programme has already delivered over 500 net-zero energy refurbishments as part of a 111,000-volume deal between housing associations and industry.
Energiesprong UK says that its ultimate aim is to set the scene, in terms of policy, funding and regulation, for a much wider roll-out of the concept, including into the private owner-occupier sector.
Energiesprong: A renovation by Dutch contractor Volker Wessels (above), and a zero-carbon refurbishment project in Limburg (top).
