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Front of property

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Inspiration Birmingham 2020 is one of eighty-seven social housing projects to benefit from £17 million of government to demonstrate whole house solutions for refurbishment that deliver deep cuts in carbon emissions and energy use.

The programme, entitled ‘Retrofit for the Future’, is the first of its kind in the UK, and will see social housing units across the country retrofitted with new, innovative technologies. Understanding and implementing best practice retrofitting is key to meeting the government’s CO2 reduction target of 80% by 2050. The results of the projects will be shared to help show how the UK’s current housing stock could be made more energy efficient.

The retrofit prototypes will each receive an average of £142,000 to demonstrate deep cuts in carbon emissions and exemplar energy efficient measures in UK social housing. The level of funding is specifically designed to stimulate the implementation of innovative, proof of concept demonstrator houses that may offer cost effective solutions for wider roll out across the UK. Each house will therefore be carefully evaluated by the Energy Saving Trust for at least 2 years and the potential for lower cost implementation in volume across the remaining UK social housing stock assessed.

The Inspiration Birmingham 2020 project will demonstrate a whole house holistic approach to deliver an 80% cut in CO2 emissions for a typical Victorian terraced property found in many parts of Birmingham. The project has been developed and will be managed by low carbon consulting engineers Encraft Ltd, working in partnership with Balsall Heath Housing Co-operative.

For more information on the project and to follow progress during the build phase please see the links to the left.

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