Social housing net zero standard: consultation

Annex C: Glossary of Terms and Acronyms

Annual Return on the Charter (ARC) - Annual return on the Scottish Social Housing Charter. Landlords must provide accurate information on the Charter indicators and contextual indicators to the Scottish Housing Regulator through their Annual Return on the Charter.

SHNZS - Social Housing Net Zero Standard

Direct Emission Heating System (DEHS) - A heating system that produces harmful gases into the atmosphere at the point of use within the building (direct greenhouse gas emissions), such as gas, oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) boilers or burners, and bioenergy systems. Also called “polluting heating” for short, throughout this document.

Domestic Hot Water (DHW) - Potable water heated for uses other than space heating.

Domestic Property - A home, whether that is a house, flat or other. This includes owner-occupied homes, empty residential properties, private rented homes, holiday homes and short-term lets. We will develop details of regulations and how best to treat and categorise specific sectors and property types, including mobile residential homes and homes on agricultural tenancies.

Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) - A document which records the estimated energy performance of a building, as well as the main heating system(s) used within it. EPCs are a legal requirement whenever a home or non-domestic building is advertised for sale or let.

Heat in Buildings Strategy - This Strategy outlines the steps we will take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Scotland’s homes, workplaces and community buildings and to ensure that we remove poor energy performance as a driver of fuel poverty.

Heat network - Large systems of insulated pipes and heat generation supplying heat (in the form of hot water or steam) to homes and other premises, such as businesses and the public sector. They include both district and communal heating: a district heat network distributes heat from one or more sources to more than one building, while a communal heating system distributes heat to one building made up of several smaller dwellings or units. Depending on their fuel source, they can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and in certain circumstances, can reduce energy bills and help to tackle fuel poverty.

Heat network zone - An area that a Council determines would to be suitable for a heat network, having considered a range of factors.

Kilowatt hour (kWh) - A unit of energy equal to 1,000 watt hours

kWh/annum - Kilowatt hours per year

LHEES - Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy – documents that local authorities must produce by end-2023 and which set out the long-term heating system(s) that are thought to be most-suited in different areas. This will include identifying heat network opportunities, which may later become official Heat Network Zones.

Main Heating System - The main heating system is that which heats the largest proportion of dwelling. It is a heating system which is not usually based on individual room heaters (although it can be), and often provides hot water as well as space heating. This definition is used within SAP^[i].

Net zero - Net zero means that the total greenhouse gas emissions are equal to or less than the emissions removed from the environment. In practice, this can be achieved by a combination of emission reduction (for example, by installing clean heating systems) and emission removal (for example, by nature).

SAP - Standard Assessment Procedure

RdSAP - Reduced Data Standard Assessment Procedure

SHR - Scottish Housing Regulator

SHQS - Social Housing Quality Standard

Scottish Social Housing Charter - The Scottish Social Housing Charter (‘The Charter’) helps to improve the quality and value of services provided by social landlords in Scotland. It sets the standards and outcomes that all social landlords should aim to achieve when performing their housing activities.

Watt hour (Wh) - A unit of energy (or work) equal to the energy of one watt operating for one hour, equivalent to 3600 joules

Zero Direct Emissions Heating (ZDEH) - Heating systems such as individual heat pumps, or connection to a heat network, or electric systems such as storage heaters which release no harmful gases into the atmosphere (direct greenhouse gas emissions) at the point of use within the building. Also called ‘clean heating’ for short, throughout this document.

ZEST - Zero Emissions Social Housing Taskforce