Alex Webb Allen, service designer from live|work, says: ‘There I was trying to engage the residents in energy saving and discussion around conservation and they didn’t really want to know because it is not on their radar. ‘I felt embarrassed to be mentioning carbon saving when there seem to be complex and more pressing social issues to deal with.’ But there was one concern which united every resident and every problem – money.
None of the residents felt they could afford to be energy-efficient. They described a Catch 22 situation where landlords were unlikely to invest money in bringing their property up to a higher level of energy efficiency and tenants had little incentive to invest to take care of their homes themselves. So neither would benefit from a well maintained, well heated, but energy efficient property.
The designers realised that ‘it’s not directly about energy saving, it’s about providing something that actually benefits the residents,’ explains Webb Allen. ‘We’re trying to attribute a value to energy saving so that if residents save energy they can benefit individually and as a community. Ultimately this takes the form of a financial product, we can release the value of the energy savings for households through a system of no interest or low-interest borrowing, using a not-for-profit business model.’
NESCO
North East Energy Service Co-operative, or NESCO, is the prototype of a not-for-profit energy utility: it would work for the benefit of members by putting them in control of their energy use, encouraging energy efficiency and making energy payment processes transparent.
If a community like Castle Terrace in Ashington set up their own NESCO energy company, it would buy energy in bulk and get savings as a result. It would sell energy on to its members at the normal market rate, with the profits going into a ‘pot’ to fund a reward points scheme to encourage energy saving. The Low Carb Lane team agreed cheaper energy was not, in itself, an incentive for using less energy.
NESCO members could use their reward points to invest in a real-time energy ‘dashboard’ delivered through their TV screens to help them keep track of how much energy they use and make more savings, more easily. If, at the end of the month, they’d used less energy than anticipated, they’d earn reward points. For example, if they saved £10 of energy they might get £10 of cinema tickets or vouchers for home improvement.
Webb Allen says the idea arose from residents’ negative feelings about energy providers: ‘The NESCO idea is a new model for an energy company. It’s a non-profit social enterprise, which is all well and good, but the fact is that most people don’t like their energy companies because most of them don’t care about their customers.
‘If we propose an energy company which does care about its customers and helps them to save energy and money, it might not be as profitable as npower, but it will achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction.’
The NESCO reward scheme could operate in any community of any size. The ‘pot’ could be used to fund the installation of the home energy TV dashboard for all members, and provide the funding for communities to buy renewable energy technologies, such as solar thermal systems, heat pumps and wood-chip boiler systems.
SaverBox
The design team developed a second financial service to encourage residents to install energy saving products. The designers knew that a lack of money stood in the way of many people’s desire to become more energy efficient. So they designed a ‘pay-as you- save’ scheme called SaverBox, which helps people pay for energy-efficient home improvements.
The SaverBox idea is simple. After a home energy audit by an official SaverBox representative, residents agree which energy saving devices would do most to reduce their energy losses at a price they can afford. The resident helps decide whether they need loft or cavity-wall insulation or a more efficient boiler or energy saving appliances.
The householder then ‘buys’ a SaverBox zero interest loan package from a local credit union, and the loft insulation, condensing boiler or double glazing is provided at no up-front cost. Then, each month, the household agrees to pay off the loan from the money they have saved on their energy bills. If the new loft insulation means they are paying £20 a month less for their heating, they might pay half towards the cost of the loft-insulation and keep £10 for themselves.
The Low Carb Lane team is continuing to test its TV dashboard, NESCO and SaverBox prototypes in more homes. After talking to residents and researching the cost and availability of energy saving products, the team used some strategic thinking to link apparently unrelated problems (vandalism and wasted energy) to create a proposal for more than just an energy efficient home. They have developed service prototypes to create a more efficient community.
Being on the scene, talking to users, encouraging community participation and developing solutions collaboratively can be done anywhere to help design better energy-efficiency into more homes and communities, says the design team.
Webb Allen from live|work says: ‘Through service innovation and making service better and more efficient, or replacing a product with a service, you can make it more profitable, more socially sustainable and better for the environment. Our services are based on the triple bottom line. We’re not environmental consultants, but in making services more effective, we can make them more socially and economically sustainable.'
What’s happened since 2007?
The scheme is currently being implemented by National Energy Action (NEA) with funding of £365,000 from regional development agency One North East.
NEA has agreed a deal with the local credit union to provide loans and used part of its funding to employ someone at the credit union to work on their behalf. Funding pays for the design and development work and the credit union.
As a result of the funding, Saverbox is being tested at the moment. NEA have door-dropped over 1,000 homes. Official figures say 300 houses contacted them as a result and 11 houses have so far installed it. However, they are all low-income houses and therefore qualify for free installation. No one has yet used the credit union loan scheme.
Visualising 4 steps to 60% reduction in energy use
While refurbishing their typical terraced house to be more energy efficient the team learnt a lot about how energy savings could be achieved. They designed a graphic representation of ‘Four Steps to 60%’, four ways people could reduce the energy they buy and use.
- 10% reduction through more efficient appliances
- 20% reduction with loft or cavity-wall insulation
- 15% by generating energy, perhaps through solar panels or wind power
- 15% through behavioural changes including switching the TV off stand-by at night, boiling less water in the kettle, and understanding how to control energy bills.