The current ‘top-down’ national net zero carbon policy advice from the Climate Change Committee to government sets home retrofit as a low priority. In a nutshell, it is substantially cheaper to add wind farms than to retrofit homes for delivering reduced carbon emissions. In the meantime, the vulnerability of household energy bills to shocks during an energy transition has been cruelly exposed, fuel poverty has soared, and energy retrofit funding challenges for reducing bills have increased significantly.
During preparation of the LETI Climate Emergency Retrofit Guide these issues were identified but touched on only lightly given limited resources. Consequently, a dedicated workstream was set up to address these under the strapline of ‘How many, how deep, at what cost?’. This examined how retrofit could, and should, become a mass rollout across 28 million UK homes. This RETROFIT-AT-SCALE publication is the output of this work.
The context upon which current policy advice is based needs to be changed, to show there is an alternative more equitable route to net zero carbon. This requires a fundamental rethink on how we as an industry do retrofit, including the need to significantly increase productivity to drive down costs and scale up delivery with our limited resources. It also examines wider savings if reducing housing energy demand, such as needing less energy supply infrastructure which enables redirection of funding into retrofit. Overall, it shows that a halving of home heat demand, and energy bills, can be achieved for no increase in overall cost for our route to net zero carbon.
RETROFIT-AT-SCALE is a ‘call to action’ to both policymakers and industry. It seeks to demonstrate what is possible. For LETI, it is important that this is published due to its potentially significant impact. So, with limited internal capacity, the decision was taken to enable publication under a different banner and the SDF agreed to host the report.
The RETROFIT-AT-SCALE workstream consisted of some 80 contributing volunteers made up of dedicated and passionate retrofit specialists, engineers, architects, cost consultants, contractors, suppliers, housing association professionals, academics, technicians, heritage specialists, planners, facilities managers and local authority representatives. A huge thank you must go to all the contributors who gave their free time in the common belief this commercially non-aligned document fills a large hole in the current debate about our route to net zero carbon.
Endorsements
“This report offers a valuable proposal for an intermediate level of retrofit that could be rolled out for a low-cost at scale. The concept includes sufficient fabric improvements to enable retention of the existing heating system, which would help reduce disruption and increase buy-in from occupants, and then shows, through a worked example, the innovations and technologies that might be needed in order to make the concept work in reality.”
Jon Bootland, Director – Sustainable Development Foundation
“LETI supports the publication of Retrofit-at-Scale with its introduction of a minimum ‘no frills’ Basic retrofit standard to help decarbonise the UK. It is important to LETI that this document be published in a timely manner, due to its significant impact potential. It is encouraging that so many volunteers from across so many disciplines are willing to contribute ideas for unlocking a national retrofit mass rollout – to whom we offer our thanks.”
Clara Bagenal George, LETI
“The National Retrofit Hub supports Retrofit-at-Scale for the help it provides expanding the discussion on options to meet the challenges of scaling up retrofit for the UK. We appreciate the huge amount of work that has gone into this document. Retrofitting our housing stock is a multifaceted challenge, and this publication seeks to explore new approaches for various cross-linking blockages between process, design, products, productivity, and costs.”
Rachael Owens, Co-Director – National Retrofit Hub
“This is an important contribution to the discussion on mapping out workable strategies for upgrading the nation’s homes. It’s radical in places, and rightly so – we’re in a climate and energy bill crisis. It explores that large proportion of the stock that tend to fall between current models, instead proposing different ways of doing retrofit. It draws in local communities, national governments, and the various strands of industry, with ideas to better appeal to householders to make it work for everyone.”
Louise Hutchins, Head of Policy and Public Affairs for UK Green Building Council