Decarbonising the Welsh housing stock: from practice to policy

Green, Ed ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6491-3480, Lannon, Simon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4677-7184, Patterson, Jo ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4440-159X, Varriale, Fabrizio and Iorwerth, Heledd 2020. Decarbonising the Welsh housing stock: from practice to policy. Buildings and Cities 1 (1) , pp. 277-292. 10.5334/bc.19

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Abstract

This paper examines whether and how the challenging target of 95% decarbonisation can be achieved for the Welsh building stock. First, a critical review of the literature and relevant case studies are presented to understand the effectiveness of different retrofit approaches in practice, and the degree to which these approaches are evidence based, and applicable to the Welsh context. These findings are synthesised into a collection of 14 recurrent dwelling ‘archetypes’, with appropriate retrofit strategies developed for each. The impacts of these strategies are modelled in terms of capital cost, primary energy use, fuel bills and carbon emissions. Conclusions provide an evidence base for future policy and a decarbonisation strategy. Retrofit strategies should include fabric first-measures to minimise increases in household fuel bills and a consequent increase in fuel poverty. Retrofit options for a significant percentage of housing are constrained by character, which would limit changes to the external fabric. Given that decarbonisation of the future energy supply is currently uncertain, all other housing should be retrofitted to perform beyond SAP90. A flexible approach that pushes all housing to achieve stringent standards by 2050 is the only way to achieve targeted reductions in carbon emissions under the assumed energy supply scenarios.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Architecture
Additional Information:	This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0).
ISSN:	2632-6655
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	28 May 2020
Date of Acceptance:	26 May 2020
Last Modified:	07 May 2023 05:48
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/131920

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