Inefficient heating systems tackled in Glasgow

The problems of fuel poverty across 2,500 homes in the city are being tackled by the Glasgow Housing Association in conjunction with TAC.

Gavin Holvey, UK product sales manager at TAC explains how the company is working with Glasgow Housing Association to tackle the problems of fuel poverty across 2,500 homes in the city.

Fuel poverty, where a household needs to spend 10 per cent or more of income to meet fuel costs, affects millions of people in the UK and local authorities have a vital role to play to help reduce this growing problem.

There were around 2.25 million fuel-poor households in the UK in 2002 with approximately 57 per cent of fuel used in the domestic sector contributing to space heating.

Yet a staggering amount of housing stock is still operating with either outdated or inefficient heating systems, or up-to-date systems that are being used ineffectively - drastically increasing the amount of fuel required for heating and therefore potentially wasting hundreds of pounds each year.

TAC has been working in partnership with Glasgow Housing Association for more than a decade in a bid to produce a fuel poverty strategy and tackle the problem at its root - the inefficient systems that were wasting energy and keeping fuel bills far higher than necessary.

The move was a response to the drastic increase in fuel prices in 2004, since when Scottish local authorities have been required to produce fuel poverty strategies.

The project was a huge undertaking - Glasgow Housing Association is the largest registered social landlord in the UK with a massive, and widely-spread, housing stock.

Yet the brief from Glasgow Housing Association was simple: to integrate all heat metering, pump management, lighting, security and lifts onto a Micronet network in order to give the energy manager a holistic view of each building's performance.

The emphasis was on installing energy management systems that would enable secure but remote access, could be integrated with the existing systems while being able to scale up to meet future requirements, would be low maintenance for engineers and that would keep heating costs to a minimum.

The aim was to install a network that would enable real-time energy analysis to be immediately available to staff - they can be sent via email or even text messages to alert them to areas that need urgent attention.

This is invaluable for engineering problems as it reduces call-out time and costs.

Ultimately, this enables Glasgow Housing Association to take more control over its sites and ultimately to provide a higher level of service to its customers, not to mention enable them to make savings on their fuel bills through more efficient management of energy.

Another key area for focus was symptomatic of public housing stock, where existing systems are already in place and you need to take an upgrade path that is sympathetic to the customer's needs to save public money wherever possible.

With so many different systems in place in so many different buildings, it was vital to take an 'open systems' approach.

By using the LON system and Micronet building management system TAC was able to integrate the new network with existing equipment seamlessly.

No stone was left unturned and there are even individual heating controllers in 500 homes across the city.

The partnership has been successful because both companies have the same aim of reducing energy, heating and building management costs.

In line with TAC's 'customers for life' ethos, Glasgow Housing Association has introduced a 30-year upgrade plan to replace all systems every 10 to 15 years, which will guarantee effective and efficient operations in the future.

The savings will benefit all involved, from engineers to customers.

This major scale project has taken considerable steps to tackle head on the issue of fuel poverty and over the next few years will hopefully eliminate the problem in Scotland's largest city altogether.

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