As temperatures plummet all round the UK, the cold isn’t the only thing starting to bite. Energy costs remain high, and the need to keep warm means many tenants will be forced to pay out huge sums just to keep their homes heated.
This was the backdrop for our second micro-conference, ‘Easing the strain on households: How smart technology can help tenants deal with rising energy costs,’ which took place earlier this month.
With the help of three industry experts, we looked at how housing providers can utilise new and emerging tech to protect residents and their homes from the worst effects of the energy crisis, including fuel poverty and housing insecurity.
Here are the main takeaways.
High levels of fuel poverty
It will come as no surprise that the number of households in fuel poverty in the UK is rising. What might come as a shock, however, is the rate at which fuel poverty is rising in the UK and the number of households now believed to be in fuel poverty.
Tom Robins, CEO of Switchee, pointed out that, for the last three years, the number of households in fuel poverty has risen by 6% – an annual increase of around 300,000. At one point last winter, around 25% of all UK households were in fuel poverty – a figure that is expected to be even higher this winter.
Robins clarified that, for a household to be in fuel poverty, it needs to be below 18°C while occupied for an extended period of time.
A combination of cold homes and ‘cycle heating’ – whereby people heat their homes in sporadic bursts – precipitates an increase in issues such as damp and mould. It’s because of these issues that Robins said Switchee is expecting a damp and mould problem that is “logarithmically worse” than in recent years.
Remote tech can help
As explained by Robins, remote technology can help housing providers to identify those households most at risk of fuel poverty, and take action to minimise or prevent harm to both the tenant and the home.
It also has the potential to highlight other issues that would have otherwise remained uncovered.
In one example, data collected by a Switchee device in a resident’s home showed an erratic and inconsistent approach to heating, despite very low outside temperatures. An alert was raised to the housing association in question, who then sent in their fuel poverty team to have a conversation with the residents.
Not only did they find that the whole property needed to be gutted and refurbished, but there was also an instance of domestic abuse. The perpetrator, according to Robins, was sent back to prison.
For Nadia Dowling, head of Digital Delivery at Sovereign, the potential of remote technology was flagged early on. The next step for them, then, was to identify what remote technology to use and how to implement it. As such, they installed more than 600 IoT devices – including water-hygiene sensors and temperature and humidity sensors – in residents’ homes to gather data on the efficiencies of residents’ homes.
This allowed Sovereign to gain a better insight into each individual home and better tailor their services to help mitigate the effects of fuel poverty.
Getting residents on board
Whether it’s installing smart thermostats or retrofitting, there are many ways landlords can help tackle the effects of fuel poverty. What’s not always so easy, however, is getting residents on board.
Stewart Little, CEO of thermal-imaging specialists IRT Surveys, spoke of the need to show residents the benefits of retrofitting beforehand. By taking an infrared survey of a house before and after a retrofit, residents are able to clearly see the reduction in heat loss as a result of retrofitting works, he said, and thus the money they stand to save. This, said Little, makes residents more likely to sign up to retrofitting programmes and let workspeople into their home.
Resident pushback was also a concern for Dowling. To address this, Sovereign launched a “really positive” SMS campaign to inform people about the sensors they were rolling out and the benefits of installing them, and then followed up with those who were interested to set in motion the process of installing the devices in their home.
“We’ve got more to do,” she said, “and our ambition is to certainly roll out more sensors.”
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What are HD micro-conferences?
A micro-conference is a small-scale conference that allows professionals to present and discuss their work; they provide a channel for the exchange of nascent ideas and an opportunity for collaboration.
The events are hosted online and delivered within a two-hour window to minimise the impact on your working day, while providing an incisive conference session and the opportunity to network and workshop with speakers and other attendees in the breakout rooms.
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