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Smart technology can make a big difference in social housing – both for residents and landlords – but deploying it can be complex, says James O’Malley.
Energy prices have never been entirely predictable, but over the last year, faced with inflation and the severing of connections with Russia, all of us have felt what that volatility can look like. And just as every household is staring down sky-high bills, every social landlord is looking nervously at its balance sheet too. Unless something very unexpected happens, high energy prices are here to stay for the foreseeable future.
However, there is also good news. The last decade or so has seen an array of new technologies come to market, ranging from batteries that can run an entire home for days without a drop of electricity from the grid, through to network-connected smart appliances and sensors that can help landlords reduce energy usage by using it more efficiently.
For example, there’s now a mature marketplace for enterprise management platforms like SmartRent and HomeLINK, which can be used to kit-out social housing with sensors that detect the temperature, leaks, CO2 and even mould – and which can then automatically adjust devices across an estate to respond to real world conditions, and display real time analytics data for managers to keep tabs on.
But are they actually being used in the real world?
“I think if you’d asked me that 12 months ago, I would say it’s definitely an aspirational thing,” says Michael McLaughlin, Digital Lead at social housing charity HACT, “But more and more they are being used.”
He estimates that almost every major social housing provider today is at least experimenting with new, connected technologies, even if the tools have not made it into day-to-day operations just yet.
But given everything, it is probably only a matter of time.
“Against the backdrop of the fact that your energy bills have just gone up, threefold or fourfold in certain parts of the country, you start to see that the payback period is getting increasingly shorter,” says Ayo Allu, Director of Design, Technical and Innovation at the Clarion Housing Group, which manages 125,000 properties across 170 of Britain’s local authorities.
And what sort of things could make a big difference and start saving energy?
“In an ideal world, if you have one block where you have a different profile [of tenants] from another, if you have a Smart Energy Centre, you can distribute warm water across the development at different times, rather than pumping everybody’s tanks full,” says Allu.
And interventions like adding smart boilers to properties can be effective in two ways. Not only can they more efficiently manage the hot water in a building, but sensors can monitor the pressure, and whether they are continuing to work in an energy efficient manner.
“Previously that would have required someone to come out,” says McLaughlin, “The fact that it can all be done automatically actually extends the lifecycle of your system because it wasn’t broken for six months before you noticed it.”
But not every technology needs to be a huge rewiring of the fundamental fabric of an estate.
“I think a vast amount of energy can be saved through the use of PIR technology,” says Allu, referring to motion sensors that are activated by sensing changes in infrared light. Units can be connected wirelessly to things like lights or fans, ensuring they only switch on when a human presence is detected.
One size doesn’t fit all
Smart technology then can clearly make a big difference to social housing – but actually deploying it is much more complex than, say, installing a smart thermostat in a private home.
“The challenge is the large-scale rollout of such technology, because applying new technology to old housing stock is a major issue,” says Allu, “The starting point of every housing association’s renovation or retrofit plan is to bring their existing stock up to par. Because without that the data and the knowledge you get from a smart solution is meaningless.”
However, not all technological innovations are going to work everywhere, such as in much of Glasgow’s social housing stock, which mostly consists of tenements. There, switching heating from gas-powered boilers to an electric alternative may not be so easy.
“There are limited amounts you can do with things like heating,” says McLaughlin, “Moving to air source heat pumps isn’t an option, for example, because you don’t have the space.”
So in some circumstances, sometimes the old-fashioned, not-so-technical solutions might work out better.
“Actually ensuring insulation is [installed] would be, for me, in those properties, the quickest bang for your buck,” says McLaughlin.
But for new-build social housing, the story can be very different.
“On the new build side of things, it’s all guns blazing. The possibilities are endless,” says Allu, “You’ve got companies coming up with whole package solutions for houses that say if you’re building a brand new house, with these fabric standards, just put all this kit in, and it will do everything that you need it to. And that for me, is the way that house building should be going.”
The only problem is that fitting out social housing can get expensive. If you include the cost of other new energy saving technologies, like solar PV panels and home storage batteries, that can be used to provide energy and also reduce pressure on the national grid at peak times, he estimates that it could cost as much as £20,000 to install every technological bell and whistle on a new home.
And there is one other important question – what do actual residents think? Though smart tech can make sense in terms of energy usage and efficiency, will residents see the new technology as an improvement or a ‘Big Brother’ imposition?
“People always talk about what tenants think about it without there being any real evidence of what they do,” McLaughlin laments, but he is also optimistic about the technology being accepted. “If you’ve got good resident engagement, that becomes less of an issue as you bring them on that journey.”
Though perhaps ultimately, whether smart technology will succeed or fail hinges on whether it can demonstrate benefits in terms of something much more prosaic.
“The average salary of a person who rents our homes is £13,500 a year. Money is their number one priority,” says Allu, “Therefore, whatever actions we take in terms of smart technology always have to end up with a reduction in cost of living for that individual.”
Michael McLaughlin is speaking in an elemental webinar on 2nd February on the subject of unlocking energy savings with smart tech. Free registration to join us live: crowdcast.io/e/unlocking-energy-savings
