It’s been a busy year at Energiesprong UK – including launching our new consortium-led Transform-ER project, joining the Mayor of London’s Zero Carbon Accelerator and continuing our work on our Heat Pump Ready initiatives to explore an integrated 'comfort and billing' service and supporting the creation of archetype-led retrofit designs for non-trad homes.
From London and Liverpool to Bristol and Berlin, we’ve travelled to see inspiring innovations and revolutionary retrofits. We’ve championed collaboration at any chance and warmly welcomed new team members.
There’s far to go to achieve our mission for every UK home to be desirable, comfortable, affordable and fit for 2050 net-zero standards. But we believe it’s vital to celebrate the wins along the way, so in that spirit here’s our team’s top 11 highlights of the year.
Spoiler alert: expect a lot of references to innovation, collaboration and feeling the love for our incredible partners.
“My favourite moment was meeting some of the inspirational team from our Innovate UK funded Transform-ER project at its launch at Futurebuild 2024. Everyone made me feel welcome long before I officially joined ESUK, and I was looking forward to getting started on our ambitious mission to enable a retrofit sector that can upgrade 1m homes every year by 2030.”
“2024 was my first Futurebuild! The chance to meet other innovators and retrofit champions in such a positive and hopeful atmosphere was compelling. And watching my awesome colleagues with their incredible levels of energy engage with audiences across the stages, as well as the official launch of Transform-ER made for an inspirational and exciting few days!”
“As a new member of the team, I have been so impressed by ESUK being part of the Mayor of London’s Zero Carbon Accelerator. It’s testament to ESUK’s leading practice over many years to not only be part of the selected team alongside lead partner Mott MacDonald, but also sitting on the Triage Board and helping secure the first projects to be approved.”
“I’ve been inspired by researching alliancing and partnering models (as part of the Transform-ER project) that bring individuals from diverse organisations into a single, collaborative project team. They prove that with the right cultural shift (backed by a solid framework), aligned mindsets, and a shared commitment to a greater common goal, success stories and better outcomes for everyone involved are within reach.”
"In a busy and exciting year, my highlight is finalising the Retrofit Accelerator - Homes Innovation Partnership (RA-HIP) Playbook. Its aim is to share lessons learned from the London projects through detailed examples and case studies, and to provide guidance on delivering deep retrofit along with practical advice, templates and checklists. The Playbook will be published by the Greater London Authority in the new year, watch this space!"
“My highlight has been getting to know our Transform-ER partners. It’s exciting to see how well aligned we are in trying to revolutionise retrofit and create a cohesive, industrialised sector that delivers high-performance, cost-effective solutions through a standardised process.”
“I’ve enjoyed seeing two new innovative approaches to deep retrofit for non-traditional archetypes come to life through our Heat Pump Ready project with Wolverhampton Homes and Clarion Housing. We’re working with RJ Barwick to test designs and explore real-word performance to create better design codes.”
“It was inspiring to attend the Energiesprong Convention in Berlin in November and witness their incredible journey from 2018 – 2024 delivering 7,000 retrofitted net zero homes (including some schools and offices). Over 50 suppliers were there collaborating to solve challenges and cater for exponential growth!”
“As a newbie to the team, it was fantastic to see how 10 three-storey Wimpey No Fines owned by Wolverhampton Homes are being upgraded with an offsite, archetype-led approach to retrofit. Our partner Rob Lambe from Melius Homes said that, in his 40 years in the industry, the project is one of the best examples of true collaboration.”
“I loved reuniting some of our #RetrofitDisruptors from the Mayor of London’s Retrofit Accelerator – Homes Innovation Partnership at a stakeholder engagement event for Transform-ER in November. RA-HIP remains one of the best examples of collaboration we’ve seen and it’s heartening to see these bonds continue through to other work.”
“For me, it has to be the last Transform-ER in-person meeting of the year - part project updates, part culture change workshop, part Christmas do! It’s always a privilege to work with partners who are genuinely collaborating to effect real change - as well as up for having fun with a couple of games of ping pong after.”
Head on over to LinkedIn, and let us know what your highlight of the year is!
