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Upgrading Controls in Existing Homes

TACMA believes that there is a vital need for a UK target to ensure that all homes with boilers have at least a programmer, room thermostat and thermostatic radiator valves. A controls upgrade is a low cost, cost-effective measure in itself, but can also have wider benefits:

 
  • The direct savings potential from improvements to controls can reduce the carbon emissions from heating and hot water by up to 20%.
  • Controls enable people to make behavioural changes to further reduce their energy use. The greatest potential for behavioural savings are in heating and hot water yet, as a simple example, you can’t turn your room thermostat down if you don’t have a room thermostat.
  • Controls also ensure that energy savings from other measures are fully realised. For example, a room thermostat and thermostatic radiator valves will ensure that the application of insulation does not simply result in excessive internal temperatures rather than lower fuel bills.
Work carried out by TACMA with the Energy Saving Trust has identified that about 8.5m UK homes with a boiler don’t have a room thermostat, and over 80% don’t reach the minimum levels of controls specified above. This equates to a potential UK carbon saving of 1.3 MtC – greater than the identified potential for loft insulation and a significant opportunity for Government.
 
This opportunity has yet to be fully grasped. Waiting for controls to be installed when boilers are replaced is likely to take over 20 years to happen on current replacement rates. Accelerating this is difficult as it is such a significant investment decision for householders. A low cost controls upgrade is a much easier decision to influence, and is a much quicker path to achieve significant reductions in the carbon emissions from existing homes:
 
  • The energy and cost benefits from improved controls can be achieved straight away with any boiler. In fact, the percentage improvement from controls added to an older, less efficient boiler will result in a greater total energy saving than with a modern boiler.
  • The controls upgrade work will already have been done when the boiler is eventually replaced, and won’t need to be done again. It will therefore reduce the cost of the boiler replacement and could actually bring forward that replacement and the resulting energy savings.
  • In tough economic times it provides householders with a refurbishment opportunity that will directly save money on their fuel bills. It will also provide a welcome stimulus to the heating industry, and specifically to installers and UK manufacturers of what is an inherently green technology.
Our aim is that Government and the controls industry work together to help overcome the institutional and supply chain barriers that have historically limited the achievement of the potential carbon savings from heating controls.