Committee on Climate Change

Wendy Pringle is the Zero Carbon Homes Development Manager at SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy).  Her role is to deliver SSE‘s low carbon homes strategy and co-ordinate the completion of  the various R&D studies at Greenwatt Way, the company’s zero carbon homes project.
Wendy has been with SSE since graduating, is a qualified accountant and has previously worked in research, finance and energy trading.

SSE is the first utility in the UK to build and monitor its own development of ten zero carbon homes to better understand the changing role of the energy supplier in a low carbon society.  To find out more please visit www.ssezerocarbonhomes.com or follow progress on Twitter @greenwattway

What motivated SSE to run this project?
It’s now mandatory for all new home built from 2016 onwards to meet zero carbon standards.  That’s not actually that far off and although the definition of this continues to evolve, SSE wanted to find out, first hand, what this means for our 10million customers.  We also want to prepare for the impact low carbon homes could have on our business whose primary purpose is to provide energy in a reliable and sustainable way.  There are very few zero carbon homes in existence and even fewer which are permanently inhabited, so SSE decided to take the lead and build some ourselves.

What construction methods and technologies are you assessing in the homes?
In order to test different building methods, some of the homes are built from timber frame and some from traditional masonry block.  The entire roof of each home is covered in solar PV tiles  with excess renewable electricity being sold back to the Grid.  An on-site Energy Centre provides renewable heating and hot water to each of the homes via a mini district heating scheme.  This Energy Centre is powered by a biomass boiler, ground source heat pump, air source heat pump, or solar thermal panels.  The performance of each technology will be monitored over the next two years and we are currently installing a hydrogen fuel cell CHP to test that too.

Who is living on the development and how do they find living in these houses compared to a standard home?
Our residents are crucial to the study and include SSE employees, Slough Borough Council staff, a Reading University researcher and a local family too.  The Building Research Establishment (BRE) is carrying out a post occupancy evaluation study with the resident over the course of the trial.  It didn’t take the residents long to get settled into their new homes and surprisingly there aren’t many difference to a standard house; all the eco kit is hidden. By far the feedback has been very positive and the homes are very comfortable with the heating being the biggest change to get used to.
 
What challenges have you faced so far and how have you overcome them?
 The mechanical ventilation system has been a significant learning point.  As the homes are airtight with enhanced insulation and tripe glazing, they require a sophisticated ventilation system to pump fresh air in and expel damp, smelly air.  In our case, this ventilation was working too well, the homes were getting too much cool air from outside and the heating system was working hard to compensate for this.  This issue has now been rectified but demonstrates that well designed and installed ventilation, whether that be passive or mechanical is crucial to the comfort and performance of low carbon homes.

Have you had any surprises?
How normal it all feels!  I have to remind myself that the hot water coming out the taps has been heated from seven boreholes 100m under the garden – I get a real kick out of that.  Timescales have also been a pleasant surprise.  We managed to design, build and inhabit one of the largest developments of zero carbon homes to date in the UK in under a year and a half.

What do you hope to achieve?
To find out what it’s really like to live permanently in a zero carbon home, whether that be during the coldest winter on record in Slough (and it was) or the balmy heights of  summer.  We will also be evaluating the performance of the renewable technologies installed, and how much energy a zero carbon home actually uses in reality.   Greenwatt Way is a project designed to make sure that SSE is well equipped to deliver the energy solutions that people need in a reliable and sustainable way as the UK adapts to a low carbon future.