̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Ray Galvin

Energy inefficiency and inability to downsize pose even bigger threat to low-income pensioners than loss of Winter Fuel Payments, study suggests

ta385 — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 09:32:48 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, published in Energy Research & Social Science, was completed shortly before the Winter Fuel Payment vote was taken, by researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Delft ̽��ֱ�� of Technology (TU Delft).

̽��ֱ��researchers raise particular concerns about the impact of the policy on pensioners with annual incomes of between £11,300–£15,000 for single pensioners and £17,300–£22,000 for couples.

Drawing on data from the English Housing Survey, which sampled nearly 12,000 households across all income groups, the study investigated how income, energy efficiency, home size, household type, and tenure status impacted on energy expenditure.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that an increase of £1 per year in income (after housing costs, tax and welfare payments) was associated with a marginal increase in heating spending of about one-tenth of a penny.

̽��ֱ��study also found that just a small energy efficiency improvement – a one-point increase in the SAP12 rating ( ̽��ֱ��Government's Standard Assessment Procedure for Energy Rating of Dwellings – had a major impact on households in energy poverty, offering an average reduction in annual heating costs of £21.59 per year.

Floor area also had an impact. ̽��ֱ��researchers found that a one square metre increase was associated with an annual increase in heating spend of £5.04 per year, for households facing energy poverty, making this the worst affected group. This compares with £4.18 per year for high-income households, £3.65 per year for low-income households, and £2.99 per year for very low-income households not in energy poverty.

“When low-income households receive more income, they generally spend a little more to warm their homes. But these households often have to spread any extra money they have across other essential needs including food,” said lead author, Dr Ray Galvin, affiliated with Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).

“A reduction in income like the loss of the Winter Fuel Payment could force low-income pensioners to cut back not only on heating but also on other basic necessities. This poses a significant risk to people who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of living in cold homes.”

Energy efficiency

Across all household types, the researchers found that the energy efficiency of the dwelling had by far the biggest impact on heating expenditure.

“ ̽��ֱ��most effective strategy to warm up the homes of people living energy poverty is to increase the energy performance of their dwellings,” said Professor Minna Sunikka-Blank, from Cambridge’s Department of Architecture.

Specifically, the authors advise that the SAP12 rating of homes need to be increased to at least 72.

Each increase in SAP12 energy efficiency rating corresponds to a reduction in heating costs of around £20 per year, meaning that for households in energy poverty, with an average SAP12 rating of 59.48, increasing the rating to the level of low-income households not in energy poverty, 71.45, could reduce heating costs by about £240 per year.

̽��ֱ��authors make clear that energy savings would not be sufficient to pay for these energy-efficiency upgrades. They would require targeted financial support.

Dr Galvin said: “Government and society may well find that these costs are paid back to the country through co-benefits of fewer days off work, longer lives and less strain on the health service.”

While this would not improve the finances of households in energy poverty as much as the direct monetary allowances such as the Winter Fuel Payment, it would, the authors argue, make a substantial, direct impact on cold, unhealthy homes.

Dr Galvin said: “There needs to be extra focus on developing policies for the long-term solution of retrofitting energy-inefficient homes. This can provide enduring reductions in energy bills while also improving thermal comfort. This approach may also align better with the goal of reducing carbon emissions and tackling climate change.”

Prof Minna Sunikka-Blank said: “Without retrofit initiatives, energy poverty will persist in the UK, because in low-income households immediate needs often take precedence over thermal comfort, even when incomes increase.”

Home size

̽��ֱ��study found that households in energy poverty have a 7.3% larger average floor area than low-income households not in energy poverty, and that floor area makes a substantial difference to heating energy costs (about half to two-thirds the impact that the SAP12 energy efficiency rating has).

Tijn Croon, from TU Delft said: “These findings suggest that inability to downsize may be a significant driver of energy poverty in the United Kingdom. Low-income households can save money and stay warmer living in smaller homes but downsizing is not always easy for older households whose dependants have left home and who find themselves with a large, older home that is very expensive to keep warm.”

One-person households spend less on heating

A surprising finding in the study is that across all income groups, one-person households tend to spend less on energy. And for households in energy poverty the reduction (£36.77 per year) was twice as large as for low-income households not in energy poverty (£15.65 per year).

Tijn Croon, from TU Delft, said: “This might suggest that many one-person households are able to control their energy consumption more strategically than a multi-person household can.”

Dr Galvin said: “Our study controlled for other factors so this is not just a case of low-income households living in smaller homes. Further research could survey one-person households to find out if they have skills and practices that could be transferred to multi-person households.”

Mitigating impact of Winter Fuel Payment cuts

̽��ֱ��authors suggest several potential solutions. Expanding Pension Credit eligibility to align with the government's low-income threshold would be the most comprehensive fix, though this may be financially unfeasible. Alternative measures could include a temporary application process for the Winter Fuel Payment for those just above the Pension Credit threshold or providing tax credits or rebates for low-income pensioners, which could be more easily managed since HMRC already holds income data.

While much attention has been given to the risk of energy poverty among pensioners, the authors also note that families with children and young adults are often equally vulnerable and may face even greater challenges in the housing market compared to pensioners.

̽��ֱ��authors are currently working on a follow-up research paper that will explore the recent reforms to the government’s Warm Home Discount scheme.

Reference

R. Galvin, M. Sunikka-Blank, T. Croon, ‘Juggling the Basics: How Much Does an Income Increase Affect Energy Spending of Low-Income Households in England?’, Energy Research & Social Science (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2024.103766

̽��ֱ��UK Government’s policy to scrap Winter Fuel Payments could disproportionately affect low-income pensioners in England, new analysis suggests. But the same study argues that the energy inefficiency of homes and challenges involved in downsizing will have an even more harmful effect this winter.

Without retrofit initiatives, energy poverty will persist in the UK

Minna Sunikka-Blank

Gioconda Beekman via Flikr under a CC license

Rooftops view from Totterdown to Bristol Centre

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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̽��ֱ��prebound effect

bjb42 — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 00:01:06 +0000

Many European households are consuming less energy than predicted, especially in supposedly energy-inefficient homes, a new study has found.

̽��ֱ��research identified a recurring gulf between the quantity of energy predicted by governments for different types of housing and the amount homeowners actually use.

Researchers also found that the discrepancy was greatest among the least energy-efficient homes, where householders appear to be consuming far less than national energy usage standards predict.

This phenomenon is branded the “prebound effect” in the study, which is published in the new issue of the journal Building Research and Information. ( ̽��ֱ��term refers to the earlier identification of a “rebound effect”, in which people who have already had energy-saving initiatives such as thermal retrofits implemented in their home then use more energy, reducing the amount of energy actually saved).

Conversely, the “prebound effect” suggests that politicians and policy-makers who want to see more such initiatives in a wider range of homes may be over-estimating the benefits, and the rate of pay-back, because their judgements about how much energy those homes consume are already exaggerated.

Dr Minna Sunikka-Blank, from the Department of Architecture at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who co-authored the study, said: “In general, the worse a home is thermally, the more the occupants tend to control the amount of heating they use. For financial reasons, they also have to. This challenges the prevailing view that large cuts in energy consumption can be achieved by focusing purely on technical solutions, such as retrofitting homes. In some cases, doing so may bring only half the expected savings, perhaps less.”

̽��ֱ��study focused on data from Germany, although it then found similar patterns in several other European countries including the United Kingdom. Germany has a rigorous thermal retrofitting programme which has been seen as a leading model for other European states.

At the heart of this model is the use of the Energiekennwert, or energy performance rating (EPR), which is a figure used by German policy-makers to predict the energy consumption of a given type of dwelling based on the thermal quality of the building, the heating system and the location. This is used to predict not only the amount of energy consumed, but the amount that might be saved with improved insulation, for example, as the result of a thermal retrofit.

Sunikka-Blank and her colleague, Dr Ray Galvin, used EPR and energy use data for 3,400 dwellings in Germany, to model the difference between predicted energy consumption and the amount of energy actually being consumed. Most of the measured figures came from meters in people’s homes. In addition, the research drew on background data about the physical character and energy consumption of a further 1 million properties.

̽��ֱ��model revealed clear discrepancies between calculated and measured energy consumption. Even when comparing homes that fell into the same predicted energy bracket, cases were found where one house used six times as much energy as another.

Critically, however, the study revealed a gulf between the predicted energy consumption for heating and the amount actually measured. ̽��ֱ��average EPR for a German dwelling was about 225 kilowatt hours per square metre, per year (kWh/m²a). Real energy consumption for heating averaged at around 150 kWh/m²a; a discrepancy of 30%.

When the discrepancies were plotted on a graph, they showed that overall, the higher the EPR (and therefore the lower the energy-efficiency of a house), the lower the relative measured energy consumption turned out to be. For example, the real average energy consumption of a home with an EPR of 300 kWh/m²a was about 40% below the calculated value, whereas that of a home with an EPR of 150 kWh/m²a was only 17% lower.

In practice, this means that many homes which are predicted to be highly inefficient in terms of the amount of energy they consume, are often consuming nowhere near as much energy in practice.

Comparison with further data, assembled by other researchers in different studies, revealed that similar patterns can be seen with homes in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

In the UK, energy efficiency is predicted using a measured called the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP), on a scale of 1-100, where 100 is the most efficient. Again, homes with a low SAP have been found to consume far less energy relative to their rating than those with a high SAP. As with the German example, the higher the predicted energy consumption, the lower the actual relative energy consumption seems to be.

̽��ֱ��study suggests that measures such as the German EPR may be based on flawed assumptions about important factors such as energy loss through ventilation, or standard indoor temperature. There may also be a discrepancy between the ways in which buildings are designed and how they are built in practice.

Fundamentally, however, the study indicates that predictive measures are failing to take into account the ways in which people actually heat their homes in practice. “It seems that many German households tend to keep their homes cooler, or heat fewer rooms in their home, or have their heating on for less time - or various combinations of these - than is assumed in their EPR calculations,” Sunikka-Blank said.

“As retrofits cannot save energy that is not actually being consumed, this has implications for the economic viability of thermal retrofits.”

̽��ֱ��study adds that further research is needed to explain the prebound effect, but hints that one reason may be budget-consciousness among families living in energy inefficient homes. This appeared to be borne out by interviews the researchers conducted with German householders.

̽��ֱ��full paper will be downloadable for free for a limited time from the journal website, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2012.690952

Many homes with poor energy efficiency are actually consuming far less energy than predicted, new research has found. ̽��ֱ��study has implications for national energy-saving policies and the economic viability of thermal retrofit programmes.

This challenges the prevailing view that large cuts in energy consumption can be achieved by focusing purely on technical solutions, such as retrofitting homes. In some cases, doing so may bring only half the expected savings, perhaps less.

Minna Sunikka-Blank

Wikimedia Commons.

Thermal image of two people standing outside a building. ̽��ֱ��study found that in many European countries, including the UK, predicted energy usage in homes bears little resemblance to the amount used in practice.

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