At work I’m helping a large housing association upgrade their existing heating networks to save carbon and reduce costs to occupants. There are various steps to take: upgrading boilers, re-insulating distribution pipework, considering CHP, and so on. But the single most effective thing you can do on these schemes is to install heat meters.
Doing some background research, I rang up the very friendly and forthcoming Dick Bradford, the driving force behind the hugely successful biomass community heating schemes in Barnsley, to ask him what effect installing heat meters had had on his schemes. He told me that following the installation of heat meters, heat consumption dropped by 50%. I was gobsmacked.
But when you think about it, figures like this aren’t crazy as they first appear. Because typically on these old schemes the occupants pay for their heating via a fixed standing charge. This disconnect between consumption and payment has predictable consequences: people leave the heating on 24/7 and regulate the temperature by opening windows. If you’re suddenly required to pay for what you use, you’ll use a hell of a lot less.
The savings Dick spoke about were much higher than BRE reckoned in their recent Desk Study on Heat Metering(pdf), but if you read that report you’ll see that the BRE were using the finger-in-the-air index to arrive at their figures. They didn’t have any firm results on the likely savings from heat metering and suggested that 30% was the upper bound for social housing.
If Dick is right, then I reckon that’s a 35% drop in total emissions from each flat, just from installing a £200 bit of kit and spending maybe £50 – £60 a year for operation, billing, and replacement. Compared to the alternatives this is very high carbon savings per pound spent (to get an idea, take a look at the cost figures in table 2.1 in the recent BERR Call for Heat Evidence).
Regarding O&M and billing, there’s an important point here: there’s a whole lot of existing community heating schemes out there (BRE reckon 1-2% of all housing is on a heat network) with 75% of supplies unmetered. If you install heat meters, suddenly someone has to manage the meter reading, billing, debt chasing, etc. That’s quite a headache for a local authority or housing association if they’re not geared up for it and I suspect this is the factor that stops many organisations from moving to billing for metered supplies.
To address this issue on my current project, we’re proposing to hand over responsibility for meter reading, billing, etc. to our not-for-profit ESCO, Fonten Power. Margins are minimised, energy costs to occupants kept low, and the client avoids the expense of developing the capability in house. We still need to flesh out the details but I’m confident we can arrive at a very cost effective means of saving a whole lot of carbon – and save tenants money on their bills at the same time. I’ll post progress here.
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[…] a few days I have been meaning to recommend heat monitors are a no brainer from Casey over at Carbonlimited. Nice simple ideas like this are so […]
Having looked into this further, I suspect that a fair chunk of Dick’s savings is attributable to improvements in boiler efficiency. For now, I’m using 30% as a ballpark estimate of consumption drop following installation of heat meters but will update when I have firm numbers.
Im looking into this for my organisation which is a housing association managing a stock of 11,000 in the north east. I was wondering if you have information on the costing you detailed (200 for the meter & 50-60 for the management of the units & who suplied these?
We are just about to invest in a new build block of flats with a centralised gas heating system, with individual pre-payment heat meters for the occupiers. The developer usually uses EDF Energy as a supplier, have you got any recommendations about which supplier(s) offers the best rates for these types of heating systems?
Hi Bernie,
Just to confirm, your developer uses EDF for heat meters?
Try Switch2 energy solutions. They have a prepayment option and have supplied EDF with heat meters.
Contact me if unsure.
David P
The trouble with these local authority apparatchiks like Dick Bradford is that they will let their mouths say anything.
They also think that everyone else has the same mentality that they do.
I am on a district heating system and if it is too warm I regulate the heat firstly with the thermostats on my radiators and if it is still too hot I turn the radiators off.
The fitting of heat meters is just a punishment on consumers.
And the ridiculous statement that they will use less heat if they have to pay for it is stupid beyond belief. The only reason they would use less heat would be fear of being unable to pay the bill.
I pay a weekly amount and can if required use my heating 24/7, but I don’t, I use it when it is necessary. and to claim that because I pay a fixed amount weekly that I don’t pay for the energy I use is insulting to say the least. Everyone on our system is elderly or infirmed and some require heat 24/7 the rest of us who don’t subsidise those that do, and are happy to do so, in the knowledge that when our time comes to need the heat 24/7 there will be no financial penalty to do so. I can also add that BMBC make somewhere between £30,000 to £40,000 surplus so to say we are not paying for the energy used is a misnomer to say the least.
On the subject of carbon emmissions and any other emmissions I am all for reducing them, but when we have a situation where a company that produces no emmissions can sell the right to produce emmissions to another company that produces loads of emmissions, this just makes a mockery of the whole system.
Also harping back to Dick Bradford and his ilk at Barnsley MBC they are only replacing coal busrning boilers with wood burning boilers, not because they produce less carbon emmissions but because they get these boilers free or heavily subsidised through Government schemes.
Sorry to go on about BMBC but these people are nothing but liars and thieves, much like the rest of their party who compose the current Government.
I believe that when Dick Bradford made his derogatory remarks about the people on district heating systems who because they pay a fixed weekly amount for their heating, cannot control their heating without a financial penalty sorry incentive, was actually referring to council office staff who receive their heating totally free and who are probably the ones who open the windows because they cannot be bothered to regulate the heating and who have no financial penalty sorry again, incentive to do so.
Again all they wish to do is create problems where no problem exists.
Not happy with the people on district heating paying for the cost of the heat, they want to penalise them by basing costs of what other people pay regardless of the cost of delivering the heat and therefore make people pay more and more for less and less whilst they reap the profit.
Nothing at all to do with carbon emmissions. Just legalised theft.
More about the crooks at Barnsley MBC, despite claims that the new wood burning boiler at Milefield Estate at Grimethorpe Nr Barnsley uses the cheapest fuel, Barnsley MBC are putting up the cost per KW/h to 8.5.
Rotherham council recover all costs a5t 3.4 pence per KW/h
Prior to the meters being imposed the tenants paid a flat rate of £12.06 which BMBC claim hasn’t gone up since 2002/3 and will have to be increased to over £15.00.
Norwich have increased their price in 2007/8 to £6.49.
Just one question to Dick Bradford and all at BMBC, why does it cost barnsley tenants more than twice as much for the same service?