A unique partnership which has brought together housebuilders, manufacturers and academics to find solutions for heating low-carbon homes in the future has won a national award.
Prof Lubo Jankovic, of Energy House Labs at The University of Salford, said:
“It is very inspiring to work with our industry partners who contribute their products and systems to us for scientific research and take our research findings back into the real world and make a tangible impact on the performance of new houses and wellbeing of their occupants across the UK.”
Key impacts from the project are:
- Air source heat pumps in new-build homes can be four times more efficient than gas boilers at typical UK winter temperatures. The optimal specification for their installation and use has already been incorporated into the construction of homes across the UK.
- ASHPs operating in cooling mode can significantly reduce overheating and provide a potential solution to address the challenge of increasingly frequent heatwaves.
- The whole-building envelope solution trialled at eHome2 has been commercialised into a fully tested/warrantied solution for scalable MMC low-rise housing.
- The project has influenced national and regional policy, from heat pump regulations to the Home Energy Model and air quality guidance.
- Learnings are also supporting other housebuilders as they transition away from gas boilers, in particular SMEs who would not have the resources for this kind of research.
Jamie Bursnell, Group Head of Technical and Innovation at Bellway, said:
“This award recognises the real-world impact of this partnership, which shows what’s possible when academia and industry work together.
“The unique testing of the houses built within the university’s pioneering climate chamber is providing a vital roadmap for the housebuilding industry as we move towards net-zero. As well as finding solutions for homes of the future, the research is already influencing the construction of homes being built today.”
Oliver Novakovic, Technical & Innovation Director at Barratt Redrow, said:
“This award is fantastic recognition of the scale of collaboration that made Energy House 2.0 possible. Working alongside our partners, we have helped to create a world-leading research facility that is generating invaluable insights into the homes of the future.
“The project is already helping us to better understand how homes perform in real-world weather conditions and supporting our ambition to deliver high-quality, energy-efficient homes. We are proud to have played our part in a project that has now been recognised with this prestigious award.”
Tom Cox, Construction Solutions Director for Saint-Gobain UK, said:
“We’re delighted with this recognition. The full build of new homes like eHome2 inside a world-leading climate chamber is, and will continue to, provide huge insight for us and the wider industry. This insight will shape homes of the future – how they’re designed and built, as well as the experiences of families in their homes for years to come.