The agenda for two new major retrofit events underline the key challenges facing the retrofit industry.
The Retrofit Roadshow events are taking place in Liverpool on 4th July and Birmingham on 9th July. They offer both domestic and non-domestic streams targeted at RSLs, Registered Providers, Local Authorities and commercial clients and asset managers respectively.
Focusing on the regional challenges and opportunities in retrofit, the programmes have been developed in close partnership with leading local stakeholders.
Both events address the twin challenge of generating demand and then overcoming the barriers to deliver at scale.
Understanding the customer is the key to generating demand. The Liverpool event features Dr Will Swann from Salford University on What makes people tick? In Birmingham, Carillion’s Head of Customer Experience Jamie McDonald and Dr Karen Strandoo from the Energy Saving Trust outline how people think and feel about energy efficiency.
On the non-domestic side, leading prospective retrofit clients will explain how they really feel about retrofit. Examples are as diverse as Merseyside’s Fire and Rescue service and Birmingham Airport, balanced by the viewpoint of the thousands of SMEs who are most threatened by Energy Act legislation. Whilst they may be threatened with the stick (commercial property rated at F &G will be non-lettable by April 2018), it is crucial to understand whether this means clients will wait and see if the government is really serious.
Having generated demand, the retrofit industry needs to be galvanised to deliver well, quickly and affordably, avoiding mistakes that could undermine customer confidence.
On the domestic side, retrofit gurus Paul Ruyssevelt (University College London) and Peter Rickaby (Rickaby Thompson Associates) explain to clients how to take the risk out of large scale projects. Mark Elton (Sustainable By Design) takes the planning system to task, whilst Martin Orrill (British Gas) examines national funding frameworks.
The non-domestic stream focuses on overcoming the barriers to widespread uptake. Malcolm Hanna (National Energy Foundation) examines how to close the performance gap between promised energy savings in the design phase and those actually delivered. The RICS explain how to resolve owner/tenant disputes and Christoph Harwood of Marksman Consulting considers the pros and cons of financing options.
The Birmingham event comes at a pivotal time for the Birmingham Energy Savers project. With work already well advanced in the Birmingham area, it will be fascinating to see whether the 35 councils and providers who signed up to the BES framework agreement plan to follow through, or plough their own furrow. This is the subject of the closing plenary session (A Regional Retrofit Strategy?). The supply chain will be watching this with interest.
In Liverpool, large scale retrofit projects take centre stage. Anne Parkes, project manager of the Greater Manchester Green Deal project (AGMA) and Maggi Howard, project lead on Project Viridis, will explain the vision behind these collaborative social housing retrofit programmes. Viridis brings together Merseyside RSLs and four local authorities, and has 100,000 homes within scope that could be worth up to £50bn to the regional economy. With those sorts of numbers involved, prospective delivery partners, assessors and installers should certainly be taking notes.
