What is our new Home Energy service, and why are we doing it?
Find out about our plans and discover the mission behind our work.
Sometimes, something comes along which seems to offer so many benefits, it’s hard to list them all. The concept of home energy retrofit – meaning the upgrading of our homes to include energy efficient and renewable energy measures – is one of those things.
Benefits of retrofit
There are lots of reasons why home energy retrofit is good. Here are just a few of them:
Lower our energy bills – we all want to be warm and benefit from appliances that do work for us, but we don’t necessarily want to pay for kilowatt hours for them to do so. If we can find a way to meet our needs while paying less, then that’s great news.
Reduce carbon emissions – most of us want to do more to cut our carbon emissions, so if we can find a way to do that while also saving ourselves money, then that’s even better.
Improve health – by improving our indoor air quality through better ventilation, we can enjoy healthier lives with fewer issues related to mould, VOCs and other pollutants.
Increase comfort – we all know when we feel warm in our homes - with fresh air and a lack of damp and humidity - we feel more relaxed and productive. It’s better for our immunity in winter months too.
Better cooling – in a warming climate, our summer heatwaves can increasingly lead to overheating. A home that naturally keeps cool can be a sanctuary.
Higher asset value – a well-designed home that’s warm and future-proofed against rising energy prices is a home that will realise higher asset value when it’s time to sell.
Building aesthetics – by looking after our homes and improving their condition with sensitive retrofit we can enhance and protect the legacy of our local built environment.
Local renewables and grid infrastructure – the less energy we need, the less local renewable energy and grid infrastructure is required to match our energy demand. This means it costs us less as a society to become energy independent, both locally and nationally, saving money in the long run.
Jobs – most home energy retrofitting and upgrade work is done by small businesses such as installers and building trades in the local area. So, we create more work for local people, and more money is circulating in our local economy.
Why we’re helping local people
As a community-based not for profit, we want our community to reap these benefits and see the potential for win-win interventions that achieve several goals at the same time.
That’s why Bath & West Community Energy took a decision in spring 2023 to establish a new Home Energy service, to complement our successful programme of community based renewable energy installation across our local area. BWCE has a vision: to put people at the heart of the energy transition. Reducing energy demand is a core part of this vision and it’s always been part of our long-term plan to develop a community approach to help local households with energy efficiency.
Over the last year and a half we’ve been working hard behind the scenes putting together this programme in place.
Our aim is to develop an independent hub of local, expert advice and support for warm, efficient, low carbon homes in our community, capable of supporting people wherever they are on their retrofitting journey.
What the new service is offering
We’re starting with home energy assessments, because we feel this key area of independent, trusted advice has real value for people. Our focus as a not-for-profit community business is to offer guidance that’s genuinely impartial, as well as tailored to what’s most important for people’s needs – be that comfort and warmth, energy costs or carbon.
We’ve developed a range of home energy survey offers to support different needs and budgets, and we’ll be adding to this over time.
Our survey options currently include:
Home Energy Efficiency Plan – cost effective in-house energy advice and a tailored report recommending the best energy efficiency options for your home, which we’re offering in partnership with Retrofit West.
Futureproof Full Home Retrofit Survey & Report – comprehensive guidance with a full measured survey, multiple retrofit scenarios, detailed report and a debrief session, which we’re offering in partnership with the Centre for Sustainable Energy’s Futureproof scheme.
Listed Building Champion Survey – expert guidance on how to make your listed home more energy efficient, and which measures are most likely to receive Listed Building Consent, which we’re offering in partnership with Bath and North East Somerset Council and others as part of our Green Heritage Homes project.
We have a highly skilled team of home energy retrofit experts, who include home energy assessors and retrofit coordinators. Beyond an initial survey our team can also offer project management services to help projects move forward into installation.
There’s more...
Alongside our home energy surveys, our aim is to also offer wider inspiration and support on a range of home energy topics that can help empower people to take action. We believe that when it comes to making changes, we’re stronger when we act together, and many of our projects have a focus on shared experience and helping people to learn from each other.
Our current projects which aim to support and inspire include:
Green Open Homes B&NES – Open Homes events provide golden opportunities for people to visit local energy-efficient homes and learn directly from those who’ve already trodden the path to low energy retrofit. We have events coming up in Pensford, Peasedown, Radstock and Bath with lots of inspiration on offer.
Green Heritage Homes – there are nearly 10,000 listed buildings in Bath & North East Somerset, and so supporting the sensitive retrofit of listed buildings is key. This project offers a range of advice, training, events and videos to help spread the word that ‘yes you can!’ make listed buildings more efficient, and aims to demystify the process of seeking Listed Building Consent.
Heat Pump Support – it will take c.900 years to replace fossil fuel heating in B&NES at the current rate of heat pump installation, so this project aims to support the local heat pump market by training assessors to provide independent heat pump assessments, recruiting Heat Pump Champions to dispel myths, and engaging with local installers (starts October 2024).
What we can see in the long-term
We believe that community energy organisations like ours have a key role to play in helping retrofit to happen. We’re passionate about what we do and believe that everyone has a right to a comfortable, affordable energy efficient home. This first stage of our Home Energy service will provide a sustainable foundation from which we can develop support for those at risk of fuel poverty in the future, which is central to our vision and in line with our non-profit community benefit model.
Our long-term aspiration is to create a legacy of warm, comfortable, healthy and low carbon homes, that are affordable to run and kind to the planet – for the future benefit of our whole community.
To find out about what we’re offering and how we could help you with your project, see our Surveys and Services.