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Tackling fuel poverty and making homes more efficient and affordable for our tenants is more important than ever. We’ve partnered with several other organisations to reduce our carbon footprint and provide more energy efficient heating solutions for our tenants' homes.

Here are just some of our projects aimed at helping our tenants save money and the planet.

 

Q-Bot Underfloor Insulation

Our partnership with Q-Bot is a significant step towards greater energy efficiency in all of our homes and achieving an EPC rating of C for all homes. We’ve been working with Q-Bot since October 2020 to trial their innovative robotic underfloor insulation technology in 38 of our homes.

This technology reduces heat loss by 78% and draughts by 30%, which will help our tenants to save an average of £150 per year on their energy bills. Tenants who received the insulation have found their homes to be much warmer and 88% said they would recommend Q-Bot to others.

Learn more about Q-Bot here.

 

Ground heat pumps installed thanks to Finn Geotherm and Gasway

Nearly two thirds of UK homes fail to meet long-term energy efficiency targets, so we have partnered with with Finn Geotherm and Gasway to address this. For 113 of our tenants in the Felixstowe area, we installed ground source heat pumps to increase their homes’ energy efficiency.

The £1.4m communal heating system has helped to reduce heating bills and cut energy usage by 70%. This has significantly reduced carbon emissions and provided a more affordable and efficient living environment for our tenants.

Find out more about this project here.

 

Blueflame installing solar PV panels

In August 2021 we began working alongside Blueflame to install solar PV panels on 59 of our homes in Wickham Market, Suffolk. This renewable project has already helped to reduce carbon emissions by 82.5 tonnes and is saving tenants more than £150 per year on their energy bills.

Making Suffolk homes more energy efficient with 1^st Choice Installations

We’ve received a total of £775,000 from the Government’s Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery Scheme in the last year to help us tackle fuel poverty. We’ve used this in partnership with Suffolk Local Authorities and 1st Choice Installations to deliver energy saving measures to more than 200 of our homes.

Thanks to this funding, 22 homes in Woodbridge have received pitched roof and new cavity wall insulation, upgrading them to an EPC band C from a band E. Our tenants have immediately benefited from much warmer homes as well as annual savings of £295 on their energy bills.

 

Helping you save money with Green Energy Switch

Earlier this year we partnered with award-winning energy switching service Green Energy Switch to help provide our tenants with free energy advice and the opportunity to save £25 on their bills. Making this switch will help us all work towards a greener future whilst helping save over £230 a year on energy bills.

 

The future looks bright

We’ve had excellent feedback from our tenants and so we have big plans for more renewable partnerships and a brighter future.

We’re currently working with Gasway and Tomlinsons to install a new ground source heat pump system in Weasenham St Peter, which will provide 32 homes with energy efficient heating.  We’ve also identified a further 2000 homes that will receive Q-Bot’s underfloor insulation and we will be installing Solar PV panels on a further 500 homes next year.

Additionally, we’ll be working with Anglian Water to help tenants understand how to save water as well as the impact this can have on our planet. We’ll also be giving away handy water saving tools such as shower timers and water saving shower heads; more information will be available on our website once these products become available.

 

Want to know more?

If you’re interested in any of these renewable projects and want to find out all about our projects, please get in touch with our Energy and Sustainability team who will be happy to talk you through the options.