Heat in buildings - multiple ownership mixed use buildings: energy retrofit possibilities

4. Introduction

The Scottish Government asked Energy Saving Trust (EST) to research properties of multiple ownership and mixed use (MOMU). This will help inform the Scottish Government’s policy on reducing the environmental impact of these property types, through retrofit of energy efficiency and zero direct emissions heating in the line with the Heat in Buildings Strategy. Historically, decarbonising these buildings has proven problematic due to the requirement for cooperation between owners. This work was completed in two phases:

• Phase 1 – categorisation of the MOMU archetypes. In this phase, EST home analytics data was used to estimate the number of each property type and identify as much information on these properties as possible, affecting how they are treated. For example:
• Ownership (rented/owner/social housing);
• Conservation/listed status;
• Current insulation levels, and
• Current heating system.
• Phase 2 – detailed measure costing. In Phase 1 there was some initial exploration of the potential costs of retrofitting these properties. Phase 2 went beyond this to analyse which heating systems are more suitable for these types of properties and attempt to identify suitable measures within each group.