Written Evidence Submitted by Q-Bot Limited

 

1.  Executive Summary

 

 

 

 

2.  Introduction

 

2.1  Q-Bot is replacing centuries old construction techniques with smart processes that combine robotics, 3D scanning, digital tools and AI in order to make it easier for contractors to inspect and retrofit buildings. The company’s goal is to make it easier for contractors to deliver quality retrofit projects by providing them with tools that identify the needs of each property, automate repetitive tasks and track the quality of the work done. Q-Bot has developed the first affordable and fully accredited (BBA Certificate Number 17/5440i1) solution for the retrofit of insulation to suspended timber floors. Q-Bot has successfully delivered direct retrofit projects for more than 30 Registered Social Landlords and set up partnerships with Local Authorities and Housing Associations to create social enterprises to create regional delivery capacity across the UK. Q-Bot is expanding in to Europe having recently completed successful trials with potential partners in France and the Netherlands.

 

2.2  Q-Bot welcomes the inquiry into the energy efficiency of existing homes by the Environmental Audit Committee and the opportunity to submit evidence. Q-Bot has been upgrading the energy efficiency of existing homes in the UK since 2012, with a particular focus on fuel poor homes, and therefore has a deep understanding of the UK retrofit market. In addition, Q-Bot has undertaken surveys on more than 2300 properties in the UK which enable recommendations based on real data collected in homes across the UK.

 

 

3.  Response to call for evidence on the Energy Efficiency of Existing Homes

 

Are the Government’s targets on residential energy efficiency still appropriate to achieve its ambition to reach net zero emissions by 2050?

 

3.1  The Government’s Clean Growth Strategy set a target for as many homes as possible to be EPC rated ‘C’ by 2035 where cost effective, affordable and practical (UK Government, 2017). To achieve net zero emissions by 2050, a near complete decarbonisation of homes needs to be achieved by 2050 (CCC, 2019). Setting staged targets such as all homes to be EPC rated ‘C’ by 2035, while a positive step in reducing carbon emissions, a side effect is that the longer-term target of reaching as near to net-zero carbon emissions as possible for all properties is not considered in the effort to reach EPC grade ‘C’. Measures installed to push a property across a rating boundary from EPC ‘D’ to ‘C’ such as an efficient gas boiler may need to be removed and replaced with an alternative low-carbon heat source to achieve a close to net-zero standard needed to reach overall net-zero by 2050. Upgrading a property to EPC ‘C’ and then further upgrading to as close to net-zero as possible as a separate project may not represent the most efficient pathway to reach the longer-term goal. Targets and policies are needed to drive investment for the long term.

 

3.2  If the 19 million homes that are EPC rated D or worse are upgraded to EPC ‘C’, and then subsequently upgraded to as close to net-zero as possible this represents 38 million upgrade projects. Added to the remaining 10 million properties currently rated EPC ‘C’ or above that will also require an energy efficiency upgrade to 2050 standards, this will result in a minimum 48 million retrofit projects to upgrade the UK’s housing stock. The creation of a practical retrofit plan showing the most cost-effective pathway to as close as possible to net-zero for each of the 29million homes requiring retrofit should be a requirement and will at least ensure the property owners are aware of the most efficient route to a 2050 standard home, even if it is not possible to take this leap in one step.

 

Should Government targets for energy efficiency be legislated for, and if so, what difference would this make?

 

3.3  Yes, if the Government is serious about meeting these targets then then targets must be legislated for, funding provided to help drive adoption and penalties imposed for not doing so.

 

How effective is the EPC rating at measuring energy efficiency? Are there any alternative methodologies that could be used? What are the challenges for rural areas?

 

3.4  The EPC rating based on RdSAP for existing homes is a good indicator of energy efficiency when appropriate assumptions are used. The difficulty as always with modelling is the assumptions that go in to the model are not always correct and can often have a significant effect on the outcome. Q-Bot has seen these discrepancies in the results from insulating the floor not being reflected in the modelled energy savings from RdSAP. The air permeability of the property is one area where the assumed values make a big difference. Q-Bot measures the air permeability before and after installing under floor insulation at roughly half of all properties installed, following the ATTMA standard. Q-Bot has seen an average improvement in air permeability from 14.36 to 10.36 m3/hr/m2 @ 50PA, equivalent to a reduction in draughts of circa 28%. RdSAP assumes an improvement of 0.1 ACH when the ground floor construction ‘suspended – insulated’ is selected compared to ‘suspended – not insulated’. The results Q-Bot measured onsite show an improvement of 0.4 ACH, significantly higher than the RdSAP assumption.

 

3.5  In addition, Q-Bot calculates the U-Value of the floor for every property installed based on ISO 6946:2007 and ISO13370 which matches the CIBSE and BR443 model used by RdSAP. Q-Bot’s results show a higher U-Value before the install than typically assumed by RdSAP. This is because the assumptions used by RdSAP tend not to be representative of the physical characterises of the properties, for example RdSAP may assume fewer air vents, a lower void, different sub-floor material. An in-depth study was carried out by Leeds Beckett University before and after Q-Bot installed insulation under the floor of an end-terrace bungalow in the North of England (Glew et al., 2019). The research demonstrates that measured U-Values, particularly the pre-installation U-Value, are higher than the value calculated using RdSAP. This indicates that RdSAP is underestimating the heat loss through the floor.

 

3.6  The air permeability measured and ground floor U-Values calculated for before a Q-Bot installation are both worse than the assumed values used in the RdSAP calculations. Based on the results Q-Bot has seen, the energy performance of older, solid walled properties across the UK housing stock is likely to be worse than the EPC data suggests.

 

3.7  Similarly, Q-Bot has witnessed huge variability in EPC results due to the variability in the survey process and individual’s expertise. For example, the EPC rating can be influenced by surveyors missing existing insulation, specifying the wrong building elements or omitting details which is exasperated by the fact most buildings do not have a history or record of previous work. For example, in the case of the floor Q-Bot has seen the wrong details entered in around a 1/3 of EPCs, or working with BEIS on an EEF5 funded project Q-Bot has shown the survey process can influence the predicted energy usage by as much as 50%.

 

3.8  Alternatives to using the EPC rating could include checking the energy bills of properties. One advantage of using energy bills is they report real energy consumption data and a reduction in the energy bill represents a real reduction in carbon emissions. The energy bill is not an objective measure of the efficiency of the property, however, as the energy bill is heavily influenced by the occupants’ behaviour. Arguably a focus on occupants’ behaviour would be a positive for reducing carbon emissions, though it would be unlikely to target fuel poor households for improvement. Fuel poor households would, in general, show as having low energy bills indicating how much the occupant is able to afford rather than being representative of the efficiency of the property. Q-Bot has installed insulation in fuel poor homes where the energy bill has not changed following the installation, however the people living in the property have reported a significant improvement in comfort.

 

3.9  Measuring the thermal efficiency of a representative proportion of properties in situ could be another option. However, measuring the U-value of elements takes several weeks and is intrusive to the people living in the property. A co-heat test to measure the Heat Transfer Coefficient is not recommended for occupied properties. A point in time method deployed o a representative proportion of properties to assess the energy efficiency and compare to the RdSAP would be more scalable. Q-Bot has been working on technology to enable a survey of a property in the same time as a standard EPC survey that would enable a more accurate energy model of the building and identify problem areas for thermal bridging as well as risks of unintended consequences. Therefore, it is Q-Bot’s recommendation that the EPC survey process is made more robust and fully accountable to improve the quality of the assumptions used in the energy model, where appropriate technology can be used to capture additional building details without additional cost. This will help ensure the right measures are selected that result in the highest energy savings per pound spent, while minimising the cost of procurement, rework and dealing with unintended consequences.

 

How will lack of progress on residential energy efficiency impact the decarbonisation of heat and the associated costs of this?

 

How can the Government frame a Covid-19 stimulus strategy around improved energy efficiency of homes?

 

3.10  Poverty, poor air quality and underlying respiratory illness have all been linked to graver Covid-19 outcomes. Providing a stimulus around improving the energy efficiency of homes will not only result in a higher expendable income for households but also improve on the underlying causes of the inequality of Covid-19 outcomes such as cold, inefficient and poor-quality housing.

 

3.11  In addition, people are spending more time at home and many are likely to do so permanently. Some will be in home offices which are cold in winter, or they will have to use portable heaters to make it warm enough. Their heating bills will likely increase. People newly working from home will have a strong need to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. They will now be looking at better insulating their house to live and work in a warmer and cheaper to heat home.

 

Is the £5 million Green Home Finance Innovation Fund enough to stimulate the market for and drive action from the banks to encourage owner occupiers to improve the energy efficiency of their homes?

 

3.12  A £5m fund will not be sufficient to stimulate 15 million owner occupiers to upgrade their homes. As a first step, owner occupiers need to understand the necessity to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and the current retrofit solutions available on the market. Retrofitting their home is no longer a luxury, but an urgent need, a necessity for their well-being, carbon footprint and annual spend on bills.

 

3.13  The UK Government has declared a climate emergency and has committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. UK homes are amongst the least energy efficient in Europe, with low energy prices but very expensive energy bills due to inefficient homes. In order to achieve the UK’s climate target, nearly all of the UK’s 29 million homes must be retrofitted.

 

3.14  Housing providers have immediately responded – In just few a months more than half of the UK’s Local Authorities have declared a climate emergency, committing themselves to take urgent action and setting individual targets. However, how are we encouraging the private market?

 

3.15  Deep Retrofit is required to achieve a meaningful reduction in energy use and carbon emissions of 60% or above from dwellings, however this can cost in excess of £50,000 per property. In this context, a £5 million fund could pay for 100 homes to be retrofitted, or partially pay for 200 homes (at 50% of the total amount per property). This only represents between 0.0005% and 0.001% of the impact on the UK market that needs retrofitting. In order to be meaningful. the stimulation should equal to 20% of the annual requirement of 700,000 homes that need retrofitting (20m homes over 30 years). Over the next 5 to 10 years, this equates to about £7bn per year to improve the energy efficiency of private homeowner homes. In addition, investing in retrofit innovations can reduce the cost and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of retrofitting while making the installation process safer and more accountable. This would also allow jobs and installs that wouldn’t not be possible otherwise, for example sending someone into a confined crawl space. This could possibly represent £5 million per technology, instead of the range of £800k to £1.8 million per project as per the current Fund.

 

3.16  The UK energy efficiency sector already accounts for £13.9 billion per year and employs about 100,000 people (Green Alliance, 2019). However, the UK market remains the ‘cold-person of Europe’ in terms of energy efficient housing and CO2 emissions. A £5 million intervention versus a multi-billion pound sector is totally inappropriate in terms of scale of the challenge. In summary £5 million could be of benefit if concentrated on a few innovations associated with companies that have the capability to operate at scale. However, to influence the sector, at least an order of magnitude more funding would be necessary.

 

3.17  The £5 million Green Home Finance Innovation Fund is surely the first step to raise awareness and demonstrate the urgent need of the market. However, stimulating the demand will require additional funding, the Green Home Finance Innovation Fund will need to be extended, on time period and allocated amount, to fully answer the need and the demand of the current market. 

 

Q3a. What policy and/or regulation could supplement it?

 

3.18  The need for legislation to drive long term decision making and the adoption of energy efficiency measures.

 

Q3b. Which models in other countries have been successful at stimulating demand for energy efficiency within this market?

 

3.19  Policies and incentives in Scotland, France, Germany, and others being potentially relevant for the Government to consider:

 

3.20  Scotland: Flexibility and ease in making decisions and the allocation of funding. Programmes such as Energy Efficient Scotland through Home Energy Scotland give free and impartial advice on energy efficiency measures as well as on what support may be available, including potentially grants and interest-free loans (Scottish Government, 2018). The Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing (EESSH) aims to improve the energy efficiency of social housing in Scotland and introduces penalties for providers who do not. This scheme has been highly effective and should be introduced across the rest of the UK. Similarly, proposals requiring private landlords and home buyers to upgrade their properties following purchase look to be highly effective.

 

3.21  France: Has a goal to bring all buildings up to an EPC rating of A and B by 2050 in order for them to be sold or leased, with lower performance levels required as soon as 2020. Example of law: POPE law (Loi de Programmation fixant les Orientations de la Politique) making it mandatory for energy companies to fund retrofit measures in the private and social market. Funding is called CEE (energy saving certificate). As a result, homeowners were entitled to install a retrofit solution funded by an energy company and only pay 1€, with the funding received through the installation company. Compared to other similar schemes in Europe, the French CEE system covers all sectors and all energies. Other types of funding are available, including tax incentives (Sebi et al., 2018) (Sunvalor, 2014).

 

3.22  Germany: ‘Germany makes it efficient’ campaign, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has launched a freephone service hotline giving information and advice on energy efficiency, including funding and grants available to the caller. Educating the market, information is seen as key in Germany. Applications for funding are quick and easy – Grants and loans are available through the KfW Development Bank. These are complemented with building and heating system labels, a new heating check programme, and possible technical renovation requirement (Odyssee-Mure, 2020), (Schlomann et al. 2016).

 

3.23  Australia: The Home Insulation Program (HIP) provided incentives for owner occupiers to have insulation installed and has provided $2.8 billion over two and a half years. The programme received praise for: the many homes insulated and installers employed; the first national focus on quality and safety standards in the insulation installation industry; a nationally accredited training program; and innovative, cross Government approaches adopted in the DEWHA/Medicare Australia partnership (Australian National Audit Office 2010).

 

3.24  Scandinavia: ‘One-stop-shop’ residential retrofit, domestic thermal efficiency and low rates of fuel poverty (European Commission, 2019) (Innovate Project, n.d.).

 

3.25  USA: The focus in the USA has been on a combination of rating and disclosure of energy use, financing, and technical assistance. This includes ‘property-assessed clean energy’ (PACE) schemes, the growth of the solar industry, and an energy-saving app linked to smart home devices (Leventis et al. 2016).

 

What additional policy interventions are needed for social housing, leaseholders, landlords and tenants?

 

3.26  Policies to drive investment for the long term are needed. A scheme like The Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing (EESSH) should be introduced across the rest of the UK.

 

 


References

 

Australian National Audit Office (2010). Home Insulation Program. ANAO. Report number: 12.

 

Committee on Climate Change (2019) Net Zero - The UK's contribution to stopping global warming. London. Available from: https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Net-Zero-The-UKs-contribution-to-stopping-global-warming.pdf [Accessed 10th June 2020]

 

European Commission (2019) One-Stop Shops in the EU: current and future role in building renovation. Brussels, Joint Research Centre - European Commission.

 

Glew D., Johnston D., Miles-Shenton D. & Thomas F. (2019) Retrofitting suspended timber ground-floors; comparing aggregated and disaggregated evaluation methods. Building Research & Information. Available from https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2019.1681927

 

Green Alliance (2019). Reinventing retrofit: how to scale up home energy efficiency in the UK. London. Available from:

https://www.green-alliance.org.uk/resources/reinventing_retrofit.pdf [Accessed 10th June 2020]

 

HM Government (2017) The Clean Growth Strategy Leading the way to a low carbon future. London, National Archives. Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/Government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/700496/clean-growth-strategy-correction-april-2018.pdf [Accessed 10th June 2020]

 

Innovate (n.d.) Setting up innovative energy efficiency service packages for home renovations - Frederikshavn (Denmark). Available from: http://www.financingbuildingrenovation.eu/cases/innovative-partners/ [Accessed 10th June 2020]

 

Leventis G., Martin Fadrhonc E., Kramer C. & Goldman C. (2016). Current Practices in Efficiency Financing: An Overview for State and Local Governments. Berkley National Laboratory. Available from: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1332131 [Accessed 10th June 2020]

 

Oyssee-Mure (2020) Germany, Energy profile, Energy efficiency trends and policies. Available from: https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-trends-policies-profiles/germany.html [Accessed 10th June 2020]

 

Schlomann B., Rohde C. & Ringel M. (2016) Energy Efficiency Policies in the German Energy Transition. In: American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy 2016 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings. Washington, ACEEE.

 

Sebi C., Nadel S, Schlomann B. & Steinbach J. (2018) Policy strategies for achieving large long-term savings from retrofitting existing buildings. Energy Efficiency. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-018-9661-5 [Accessed 10th June 2020]

 

Scottish Government (2018). Energy Efficient Scotland user guide: homeowners. Glasgow. Available from: https://www.gov.scot/publications/energy-efficient-scotland-user-guide-homeowners/ [Accessed 10th June 2020]

 

Sunvalor (2014). Energy Efficiency in France. Available from: https://www.s-ge.com/sites/default/files/cserver/publication/free/market-study-france-energy-efficiency-sep-2014-s-ge.pdf [Accessed 10th June 2010]

 

 

June 2020