According to a report at Sheffield Hallam University, social-housing providers are installing renewable energy systems without fully understanding how the technologies perform or what level of savings are being delivered to residents, in what has been labelled a ‘fit-and-forget’ approach to fuel poverty.
The Centre of Infrastructure Management at the university stated that PV arrays and ground-source heat pumps are increasingly being used by social-housing providers to help the 1 in 5 householders in the UK in fuel poverty (10% or more of income spent on energy to maintain a warm home) and to reduce carbon emissions.
Due to Government subsidies such as Feed-in-Tariffs, payback periods have fallen and some social-housing providers have begun to adopt a long term strategy to their schemes. While their Intentions are good, the university states that this approach is not sustainable and is the outcome of the way the schemes have been funded, particularly grant funding, which means no provision for ongoing performance monitoring and system maintenance. This can result in under-performing and malfunctioning technologies which will cost more in the long run and undermine the economics of schemes.
Renewable technologies are not a quick fix to solving the fuel poverty problem in the UK, preliminary research should be carried out to ensure that the systems implemented are suitable and are going to provide worth while savings. When these technologies are used with other energy-efficiency measures they can be an effective tool in helping to reduce a households carbon emissions and energy bills.
