Derby Homes is an arm’s length management organisation (ALMO) created by Derby City Council to manage, maintain and improve its social housing. With an ongoing strategy to improve the energy rating of its properties, Derby Homes turned to Vaillant to deliver a highly efficient heating system at Rivermead House. LABM reports.
Over the last couple of decades, housing organisations have been set up around the country tasked with the objective of maintaining housing stock and improving the standard of homes. Since 2002, this responsibility has fallen to Derby Homes, which manages council homes in the East Midlands city of Derby.
After assessing all the properties in its portfolio, Rivermead House, a development of 54 flats in an off-gas area north of Derby city centre, was flagged as requiring a more efficient heating system. With ageing electric storage heaters in place, Derby Homes set about finding a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly solution.
Going renewable
Having already carried out a programme of thermal improvements to the homes, including wall and loft insulation, the next phase was to see how innovative heating solutions could achieve further reductions in running costs.
“We were initially keen to investigate the possibility of various heat source options such as running a micro-district heat pump, using energy from the ground or the local river,” says David Pickering, Gas Supervisor at Derby Homes. “However, these options were ruled out as potential costs were coming in over £13,500 per flat. We needed a solution that could be easily installed, with as little disruption for tenants as possible. We wanted to ensure residents were fully on board with the project.”
Derby Homes turned to preferred manufacturer, Vaillant, for support in finding innovative renewable technologies that could deliver the savings it needed at an affordable price. After a survey of the site, the team immediately recognised that the balconies of each flat would be an ideal space to house an air source heat pump.
Easy installation
As Derby Homes is a non-profit organisation, savings needed to be made wherever possible.
“With pressure on budgets, we explained that money could be saved if Derby Homes undertook the system fitting, as opposed to using a contractor, with the support of Vaillant every step of the way,” Mark Burton comments. “Vaillant offered full training on the air source heat pumps and our engineers were on-site at least once a week to give continued assistance and guidance to their in house team of installers.”
Each flat was installed with its own aroTHERM 5kW air source heat pump, VRC 700 weather compensating system control and a 150-litre slimline hot water cylinder. Costs were successfully kept to a minimum, with each flat fitted for £6,000 — a huge 30% per cent saving against a comparable quote.
Tenant support
One of the major challenges of social housing projects is to gain the support of tenants and Derby Homes needed to make this a key part of the strategy. There are many myths and pre-conceptions around renewables, which Derby Homes were keen to overcome. One way to do this is to improve the communication with tenants, so Vaillant presented its renewable show trailer outside Rivermead House on 13th July 2017.
With a working aroTHERM on board, the day was spent speaking to the tenants, demonstrating how the equipment worked and proving its low noise levels. In order to educate the residents, Derby Homes had already fitted three pilot installations which demonstrated the cost saving benefits to the remaining tenants and gave them confidence that the project would be a success.
David says: “Thanks to Vaillant’s help throughout the process, the feedback and support of the tenants has been excellent, there have been no problems whatsoever. The new heat pump systems are a major improvement on the electric storage heaters, and now the residents can enjoy affordable control of their heating throughout the entire flat.”
Significant savings
Since the installation, the tenants are also seeing a huge reduction in their fuel bills. One of the main benefits of air source heat pumps is that they can help safeguard against the fluctuations in oil and LPG prices that leave tenants vulnerable to the ever-rising costs of heating their home. With the previous storage heating system, average energy consumption of 13068 kwh equated to costs of around £1,250 a year. With aroTHERM heat pumps in place, bills have been slashed to £730 per annum, providing a typical saving of £520 a year per household.
The installation of renewable heating technology at Rivermead House also means that Derby Homes can take advantage of the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). In order to claim RHI, it had to apply for the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), the installation standard for heat pumps. As this was their first heat pump project, Vaillant offered special assistance with the certification process. From this, it is projected over the next seven years over £196,000 will be claimed by Derby Homes through RHI. What’s more, the training and professional qualifications that Derby Homes installers have now obtained can be applied to other projects in the future.
David concludes: “The completion of this project is a win-win — not only have we helped tenants to reduce their bills and take them out of fuel poverty, we’ve also played our part in reducing harmful carbon emissions.”
