I spent a lot of time working with EPC certificates when I lived in Scotland. The published data is, for lack of a better word, garbage. Huge inconsistency in data entry, IIRC more than 10% of the data is utterly worthless (houses more than 2,500sqm with tiny energy use) it took me weeks to get the 2.5m lines of data clean and, once clean, the only upgrades with a positive investment return on even 2021 electricity prices were lighting upgrades. Which had probably been done.
Know this isn't the main thrust of the article. But, existing government efforts in this space, whether devolved or not, are phenomenally poor.
And the EPC register, at least in Scotland, has data on whether the boiler is condensing or not. If it's not it's an incredibly old one. So, there are good proxies for this data, albeit in very poor quality data...
I thought that when a plumber installed a new boiler they are required to register the installation with the local authority under building regulations, although that is a patchwork of databases and I don't know if the records include anything about the type of boiler installed, like a gas safety certificate does.
Such a simple, obvious suggestion- it’ll never happen 🤪. Who is responsible for procuring the new contract as lobbying them might help. Relatively easy for the supplier to do this as they will have most of the database already to manage booking, billing etc
"For example, if we had a central register, it would mean that the government could specifically target households with the oldest, crappiest boilers with incentives to upgrade." And what happens when it transpires that the houses with the oldest, crappiest boilers are stately homes, London townhouses worth £millions and second-homes based in Newquay (i.e. houses owned by people who don't need support)?
Just on the Downing St point - seems like there is some spare roof space, south-facing, not overlooked. But it would probably take forever to pay back, and people would squeal about it being a listed building: Westminster council would probably take delight in refusing to allow the installation.
There is a potential downside that this could lead to important safety checks / work getting politicised. The extreme case is someone doesn't get work done because they think the government is spying. It's probably manageable but it needs government to get ahead of the story first.
I spent a lot of time working with EPC certificates when I lived in Scotland. The published data is, for lack of a better word, garbage. Huge inconsistency in data entry, IIRC more than 10% of the data is utterly worthless (houses more than 2,500sqm with tiny energy use) it took me weeks to get the 2.5m lines of data clean and, once clean, the only upgrades with a positive investment return on even 2021 electricity prices were lighting upgrades. Which had probably been done.
Know this isn't the main thrust of the article. But, existing government efforts in this space, whether devolved or not, are phenomenally poor.
And the EPC register, at least in Scotland, has data on whether the boiler is condensing or not. If it's not it's an incredibly old one. So, there are good proxies for this data, albeit in very poor quality data...
I thought that when a plumber installed a new boiler they are required to register the installation with the local authority under building regulations, although that is a patchwork of databases and I don't know if the records include anything about the type of boiler installed, like a gas safety certificate does.
Such a simple, obvious suggestion- it’ll never happen 🤪. Who is responsible for procuring the new contract as lobbying them might help. Relatively easy for the supplier to do this as they will have most of the database already to manage booking, billing etc
"For example, if we had a central register, it would mean that the government could specifically target households with the oldest, crappiest boilers with incentives to upgrade." And what happens when it transpires that the houses with the oldest, crappiest boilers are stately homes, London townhouses worth £millions and second-homes based in Newquay (i.e. houses owned by people who don't need support)?
Just on the Downing St point - seems like there is some spare roof space, south-facing, not overlooked. But it would probably take forever to pay back, and people would squeal about it being a listed building: Westminster council would probably take delight in refusing to allow the installation.
There is a potential downside that this could lead to important safety checks / work getting politicised. The extreme case is someone doesn't get work done because they think the government is spying. It's probably manageable but it needs government to get ahead of the story first.