Our Changeprint
Our Changeprint can be measured by the number of businesses engaged in Energy House 2.0; new research undertaken and new products that enter the market; reducing CO2 emissions in the field of domestic energy; pushing the boundaries in decarbonising properties more effectively; and supporting rapid innovation in the property/housing sector that will drive down CO2 emissions.
Our story
by Professor Will Swan, Energy House Laboratories at the University of Salford - Energy House 2.0
The built environment in the EU is responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of Greenhouse Gas emissions. The Energy House 2.0 project is a facility that will help bring innovative products that tackle decarbonisation of our homes to market quicker and at lower cost.
The journey started in 2010, when the University of Salford developed the original Salford Energy House. The laboratory facility contained a Victorian House in a climate-controlled chamber and provided a new way to understand how products in our homes performed.
The approach allowed innovative companies to understand how their products performed quicker and at lower cost than had previously been possible. By controlling the conditions of the house, it allowed the team to conduct repeatable experiments, providing detailed data at the whole-house level. The facility was designed to address the essential UK retrofit challenge.
In late-2015, Professor Will Swan and Dr Richard Fitton - who lead Energy House Laboratories at the University of Salford - developed the Energy House 2.0 concept which would go a step further. It would allow for a much wider range of temperatures and conditions to be tested (covering 95% of the populated globe), as well as provide the ability to build any type of domestic or small commercial property within the chamber, rather than a single property typical of the UK. The Energy House 2.0 proposal was submitted for European Regional Development Agency funding in 2017 and was funded in 2018.
Working with partners Bowmer and Kirkland, AECOM and NG Bailey, the team at Salford developed the £16m project, which was opened in 2023. The site is one of the biggest building performance test labs in the world. It consists of two large-scale environmental chambers where temperature (-23C to +52C) and humidity can be controlled.
The chambers are “green field” sites, where any type of property can be constructed within the chambers. Large scale hanger doors mean that the chambers can be accessed by construction equipment, while earth pits, mean that foundations can be dug, allowing constructors to build almost as they would on a real site. Sensor arrays are built into the properties as they are constructed , giving a detailed view of the performance of the building in all aspects of energy use. This flexibility means that structures can be built, tested, and then replaced, allowing the team to investigate a wide range of building types.
We work with major companies around the Future Homes Standard, as well as with small start-ups with innovative products. Our team explores building, fabric, heating systems, domestic hot water, overheating and EV performance, under various controlled conditions, to improve the performance and resilience of domestic and small commercial buildings.
Our advice
We had an existing facility, the Salford Energy House, which was a high risk venture in 2010. However, we soon discovered it addressed a major gap in helping businesses and other stakeholders quickly understand how innovations could be applied by allowing us to conduct repeatable experiments. We took the lessons from Salford Energy House and looked at how they might be applied on a bigger scale.
We have worked closely with business, other research institutes and Greater Manchester Combined Authority, to refine the concept. We kept an open dialogue with interested parties and built a strong community around the idea. We did not have a clear idea of the funding pot, but we had a well established concept and stakeholder engagement when the funding opportunity arose.
It was a large project so it carried a lot of risk and required good communication. Additionally, it required strong project management to ensure we effectively engaged with the funders and match funding partners. If people were to follow with a similar large-scale project, it is important to recognise the risks, address the detail and communication. This kind of large-scale project takes time and building confidence and a coalition around it requires you to be open to other people's ideas.
It is an ambitious project, but ambitious projects do generate their own excitement and it is important that this is maintained and exploited, by making sure that there is a good level of ongoing engagement.
