Strategic Energy Partnership
Coventry City Council joined forces with E.ON in 2023, to launch an innovative 15-year joint venture partnership, the first of its kind in the UK. This is an important partnership for the city to help us achieve our ambitions to lead the Green Industrial Revolution.
The first 20 months of the Strategic Energy Partnership has seen a huge amount of activity, laying the foundation for significant impact in future years. The interventions will support a reduction in carbon emissions across the city by up to 65% by 2038, from the baseline year of 2021.
There are a number of projects in development which include energy efficiency initiatives in schools, council buildings, homes and electric vehicle charging vehicles. The Council’s electricity supply contract now has an increased proportion from renewable sources compared to the previous supplier and flexibility to increase the proportion of renewable energy in future years.
The Strategic Energy Partnership are also developing a pipeline of potential innovation projects, working with start-ups and technology firms to use Coventry as a “living lab” to benefit from new technology.
Examples of recent innovation activity include:
- a pilot a scheme targeted at customers in fuel poverty, by helping them to manage energy costs through battery storage and time of use tariffs. This has allowed 17 homes to reduce their energy bills and as a result EON has won a Utility Week Flexibility Inclusion Award
- a drone survey allowed us to measure the energy efficiency of thousands of homes in Hillfields, our first Net Zero Neighbourhood. This in turn will help identify residents who are eligible for grant programmes and target energy improvements in their homes
- the partnership is also delivering significant social value an estimated £1.3 million worth of social benefit was committed from September 2023 to March 2025. Some of the initiatives that have taken place include:
- engaging with school pupils on energy efficiency, and a sustainability workshop with 880 young people in the city was held
- working with child social care leavers on work experience placements focussing on communication skills and career opportunities
Residential retrofit
Thirty percent of the city’s emissions come from residents’ homes. Over 100,000 homes across the city are estimated to have energy performance certificates (EPC) below C, where A represents most efficient, and G least efficient.
Retrofitting domestic properties is key to addressing this as well as tackling inequalities; by reducing fuel poverty, energy bills and carbon emissions, and improving climate resilience, especially for the most vulnerable residents in our community.
The importance of this cannot be understated, with 22.2% of Coventry households currently living in fuel poverty.
Some of the developments in this area include:
- accelerating action on domestic we have successfully attracted almost £30m external grant funding to support residents across 2500 homes across all housing tenures in the city
- maximising employment opportunities from this perspective, a partnership with Citizen, Coventry College and the employers Westdale and Dyson Energy Services has resulted in more than 30 residents moving into employment within the Retrofit sector to date
- Year 5 children were engaged through a pilot ‘Retrofit Rocks’ project at St Augustin’s School in Radford to raise awareness of improving insulation and retrofit funding to encourage increased participation levels. The University are now supporting the development of resources to be made available to schools across the city
- development of the use of virtual reality headsets to illustrate and explain what retrofitting a home looks and feels like, as a tool to help sell the benefits of retrofit to the public being developed with benefitting residents and Warwick University
Case study - Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund
The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) is a government-funded scheme aiming to improve the energy efficiency of social housing in England. It is designed to bring social houses up to an energy performance certificate (EPC) Band C, delivering warmer homes with reduced carbon emissions and fuel bills, helping to tackle fuel poverty.
The Council is nearing the end of delivery of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) Wave 2 programme, working in partnership with Citizen Housing to support retrofit measures in over 2,000 social housing properties across Coventry.
Wave 2 of SHDF started in April 2023 and is on target to complete works to over 2,000 properties before the scheme end date in September 2025, with over 1,500 homes completed by March 2025 and over 1,800 started.
The work, which is co-funded by Citizen Housing, follows a fabric first approach, installing external wall insulation, energy efficient doors and windows, increasing loft insulation and improving ventilation to reduce the potential for mould growth.
