Sustainability in your home

Properly insulating and draft proofing your home should be one of the first steps you take to improve the energy efficiency of your home.  

This will save you money on your energy bills by reducing the amount of heat energy escaping from your home. You can insulate your loft, walls and roof.

More than half of a household’s energy bills are spent on heating and hot water. Installing an efficient system can help you to reduce these costs as well as reduce your carbon emissions.  

See various heating and hot water solutions below:

• air source heat pumps extract air from outside and compress it to make heat which can used for heating and hot water
• ground source heat pumps extract ambient heat from the ground and compresses it to make heat which can be used for heating and hot water
• combined heat and power systems generate both heat and electricity, although they are primarily used for heat generation, excess energy is converted to electricity
• biomass burners burn products such as wood to produce heating and hot water, a biomass stove will typically be used to heat a single room, but a biomass boiler can be used to provide central heating and hot water for the whole home
• electric heating includes storage heaters, panel heaters and infra-red heaters

Installing heating controls can be a relatively low-cost way to improve the energy efficiency of your home as they can be used to ensure that you only use the heating and hot water that you need.

See various low-cost heating control solutions below:

• smart thermostat - controls the time and temperature of your heating and hot water in the same way that a traditional thermostat does but they also have additional features
• thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) - fitted to each radiator in your home and mean that you can have different temperatures in each room or have radiators off altogether in rooms you aren’t using

Heat networks use a shared network of pipes to transport heat from a central source to multiple properties. The use of heat networks is expected to increase in the coming years as the government has identified them as having a key role in the transition to a low carbon future.

See various forms of heat networks below:

• communal heating uses energy from a central source to supply heat to a number of residents in a single building. This is often in the form of a boiler in the basement of a block of flats
• district heating uses heat from a local energy centre to supply heat to a number of different properties 

Solar power is a renewable energy option for powering your home using energy and heat from the sun.

See various options for solar energy adjustments to your home below:

• a solar photovoltaic (PV) can be installed on your property (usually on your roof) to use energy from the sun to generate electricity that can be used in your home. You can install battery storage alongside solar PV to store any energy you don’t use for later when the sun isn’t shining. Alternatively, you can sell any excess electricity back to the electricity grid using the smart export guarantee (SEG).
• a solar thermal or solar water heating systems can be installed on your property (usually your roof) to use energy from the sun to heat water which can be stored in a hot water tank to be used in your home.