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Housing and buildings

The rate of emissions from housing and buildings has been declining more slowly than those from most other parts of the economy including electricity supply, industry and business. Only transport emissions have reduced more slowly. Domestic heating is now the second largest contributor to North East emissions after transport.

The Climate Change Committee’s progress report in 2021 recommended that Government prioritise this area by providing a long-term policy framework to support increased energy efficiency and growth in the use of heat pumps.

There needs to be acceleration of the pace and scale of decarbonising new and existing homes and other buildings in the North East through a combination of design, technology and retrofitting insulation and new energy and heat sources.

Taken together the current energy, cost-of-living and climate crises means reducing emissions from buildings is vital to secure national energy resilience and to bring down bills of businesses and domestic consumers alike. This in turn creates an opportunity to reduce the region’s reliance on fossil fuels and drive forward on some of the new technologies being brought forward in the region.

What the evidence tells us

Our evidence base shows there has been a 39% fall in CO2 emissions from domestic sources in the North East LEP since 2005, with this source now representing 33% of all CO2 emissions in the region. Follow the link below to read our full evidence base.

Explore the evidence

Our assets

Social housing

Social landlords can be “flag bearers” for energy efficiency standards with the right support. With a relatively high proportion of local housing socially owned there is an opportunity for the North East LEP to improve average energy standards

Industrial regeneration

The North East has a range of industrial assets that offer distinctive opportunities for energy efficiency, for instance Seaham Garden village is the UK’s first district heating scheme using geothermal heat from the Coal Authority’s Dawdon mine water treatment scheme

Hydrogen fuel

Hydrogen fuel represents a long-term potential energy source and the Northern Gas Networks Lower Thornley site is being developed as a national demonstrator for the use of hydrogen-fuelled appliances

Expertise and innovation

The North East has significant knowledge assets in the region’s universities and business base, which could make transformational impact as part of a strategic approach

Challenges

There are a number of challenges and risks to accelerating progress in our region, including:

  • Heat pumps - further funding and incentives are needed to strengthen the communication to owners and to build the supply chains and skills required.
  • Gas - the historic low price, and the lack of understanding about the emissions of gas boilers has restrained change. The current high cost of wholesale gas and the risks to both cost-of-living and resilience has led to enhanced interest in the transition away from gas for heating homes and buildings.
  • The high cost of energy from transmission and distribution charges compared with other countries in Europe represents a competitive disadvantage for UK industries seeking to compete with those elsewhere.
  • The variety of housing tenures in the North East creates challenges in changing behaviour, with schemes currently not targeting incentives to owner-occupiers and the private rented sectors.
  • The Green Homes Grant voucher scheme failed to secure a strong response from private homeowners and there are now few sources of funding available. It is also not obvious who a homeowner should approach to get trusted advice and coordination of necessary works.
  • Landlords and councils are unable to plan for existing homes beyond the expiry of the current group of schemes.
  • A move towards longer-term programmes is required to build skills capacity and business confidence in the retrofit sector .
  • A key challenge is the strength of the retrofit supply chain to respond. The limited schemes that are underway are already stretching the existing regional supply chain.

Opportunities

The North East is well-placed to step up to the challenge of decarbonising buildings by retrofitting 45,000 homes per year until 2035 and is also developing a range of projects to decarbonise the public estate.

The region therefore has potential to grow its contribution to the decarbonisation of energy and heat through:

  • An intensive housing retrofit programme and a concurrent programme to transition buildings away from non-renewable heat sources.
  • Supporting the ambitious social housing sector to go further on this agenda, securing funding to enable a long-term approach through a combination of new housing development, building safety, net zero targets, and investment towards a refreshed Decent Homes Standard.
  • There is an opportunity to establish a supply chain and skills base to retrofit homes and then to maintain the stock.
  • The North East has a strong pipeline of local and regional energy projects valued at £3-400m which could be mobilised with the right funding.
  • Through Wave one of Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, local authorities in the NELEP area received a total of £11.6m to support the upgrading of homes. Wave two will have up to £800m available for housing providers to bid for.
  • North Tyneside, Northumberland and Newcastle Councils, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle University and Northumbria University have together been awarded £60.5m from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme to install a range of renewable energy technologies and improve the energy efficiency of public sector buildings across North of Tyne.
  • The region has been in the forefront of developing and demonstrating innovation which can make a difference in this area, deploying technologies and approaches including heat networks, mine energy and community energy schemes, and leading research and development in hydrogen technologies, energy storage new delivery mechanisms for solar power

What we are doing already

We are well-placed to step up to the challenge of decarbonising buildings with so many examples already including how we are retrofitting homes, decarbonising the public estate and designing out carbon in the construction and architectural sector.  Here are some more examples.