Cheaper, greener, healthier and richer: the benefits of harnessing technology to decarbonise housing
By providing funding certainty and supporting an engineering workforce that can harness digital technologies to decarbonise existing and future housing stock, the government can lower energy bills, reduce carbon emissions, boost health and grow the economy.
What if you could have your cake, eat it, and bake and eat more cakes, all while actually saving money and losing weight? It might sound too good to be true, but that is the potential of taking a holistic approach that harnesses digital technologies, sustainability and skills to deliver on the government’s new homes commitment and retrofit the UK’s existing housing stock.
Better data, better homes
By harnessing the latest technologies, such as digital twins, and supporting the integration of individual buildings into the energy grid through local micro-grids and peer-to-peer energy trading, new housing can be developed sustainably and promote healthy living while remaining affordable.
Digital twins utilise a group of technologies, such as AI, machine learning and robotics, to provide a realistic digital representation of physical assets, processes and systems. This allows for greater data and information management, which can make new housing developments more sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective, and address health and care challenges. That is why they must be a key component of the government’s pledge to build 1.5m homes over the next five years.
Benefit of retrofit
Ensuring that all new-build properties are designed, constructed and operated to net-zero insulation and heating standards, while important, can only achieve 5 per cent of the decarbonisation required in housing to achieve our net-zero goals. The other 95 per cent will require a deep retrofit of the existing housing stock that will still be in use in 2050. By leveraging current technology to retrofit 11m UK homes, the government could remove 41 per cent of the carbon cost of housing – shaving billions from the UK’s energy bills.
The benefits of this go well beyond energy and cost savings. Quality and availability of housing have a direct impact on productivity and economic growth, while poor-quality housing has been shown to affect education attainment1 and costs the NHS £1.4bn each year, including at least £145m arising directly from cold homes which cause 35,000 excess winter deaths each year.
To achieve this, there needs to be a long-term budget similar to that promised for R&D, as well as a breakdown of projections for private investment leveraged through GB Energy, as that will incentivise investment in the deep retrofit industry.3
Building skills pool
National Grid estimates that an additional 400,000 skilled workers will be required if the UK is to meet its commitment to net-zero by 2050.4 That is why these measures must also be supported by a resilient renewable energy installation, maintenance and retrofit skills pipeline across the whole of the UK, so that a take-up in demand can be met by an adequate supply of skilled workers.
However, we cannot effectively tackle the skills shortage if we are limiting opportunities for growth and failing to attract a diverse pool of engineers and technicians into the sector.
That is why we need to see a dual approach of building a resilient domestic pipeline of engineers and technologists – starting in schools, and looking at upskilling and reskilling throughout people’s careers – while continuing to attract the best talent from around the world.
Conclusion
In harnessing technology to deliver new homes and retrofit existing housing stock, the government can save homeowners money on their energy bills, reduce carbon emissions from the heating of homes, improve people’s health – reducing the burden on the NHS – create skilled jobs across the country, and stimulate investment to boost the economy.
But to realise all of these opportunities, the government must recommit to the Warm Homes Plan, while also providing a long-term budget, leveraging private investment through GB Energy for retrofit, and supporting an engineering workforce that can harness digital technologies, particularly digital twins.
In the upcoming Budget, it will be vital that the government provides the sector with certainty via a clear roadmap outlining costings and funding over this parliament.
1. IET report, Scaling up retrofit 2050, cited “Housing and Economic Development” Housing Corporation and Centre for Cities, 2008. retrofit.pdf (theiet.org)
3. IET, Labour National Policy Forum Consultation 2023: A green and digital future response, cited “Green Alliance, Reinventing Retrofit 2021” s1194-a-green-and-digital-future.pdf (theiet.org)
4. National Grid: Building the Net Zero Energy Workforce 2020 https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/net-zero-energy-workforce
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