Future Homes Standard: Insights and analysis by Jeremy Yapp

Last month’s release of the Government’s long-awaited Warm Homes Plan was a good news story and a demonstration that Government is heading with enthusiasm in the right direction: the future of UK housing is electrified, smart and flexible. This is excellent news after years of hard graft and delay we finally have a Future Homes Standard that will begin to deliver this smart, electrified future at pace.

From next year, with a few exemptions for work already underway, new homes in the UK will be equipped with solar panels, electric heating instead of gas boilers, better efficiency and controls, and better guidance for the people who live in them, to take advantage of these excellent and commonsense changes.

This means that homes will emit at least 75% less carbon than 2013 standard homes and be significantly cheaper to heat. They will be “zero carbon ready,” meaning they will need no retrofitting to meet net-zero targets as the electricity grid decarbonizes.

The combination of the Warm Homes Plan and the Future Homes Standard, along with the Warm Homes Fund to disburse the Plan’s £5bn will deliver safer and more comfortable homes, lower bills, more energy security and resilience, more consumer engagement with new tech and services (especially flexibility), economic growth and decarbonisation.

So, what’s missing? The answer is storage.

The number of installed hot water tanks in UK homes has been declining, and that needs to change so more people can install heat pumps without major disruption. But even more important is the home battery. There is no mandate for home batteries in the Standard, though the Plan contained welcome support for home batteries as a valuable flex asset in themselves as well as the logical accompaniment to rooftop solar.

And that’s the point: we can’t expect Government to do our jobs for us. Home batteries are mature technologies, and their financial benefits speak for themselves. Obviously we would like to see some support for energy storage in the Warm Homes Fund, but it is Industry’ responsibility to put batteries and solar together in people’s minds so they can’t imagine one without the other.

If you are installing solar PV on your roof or buying a home with solar generation already installed, it needs to be clear how much additional benefit you stand to gain from that asset by coupling it with sufficient battery storage. This allows you to manage your system smartly, responding to grid signals, the weather, your energy needs and preferences. That way your system is choosing the best times to discharge the PV energy into your battery, use it directly in your home, charge the EV for later or export it to the grid.

The case for home batteries in combination with solar PV is so compelling that we don’t need a specific mandate for batteries in the Standard. A mandate for PV is an effective mandate for home batteries, because the two complement each other so well. Without a battery, you are missing the best of your PV panels. And now it is up to us and industry to make sure all our customers understand this, and realise the value of storage.