The effects of home energy efficiency upgrades on social housing tenants: evidence from Ireland

Abstract

This research examines some of the multiple benefits of a home energy efficiency upgrade programme for social housing tenants. Employing a quasi-experimental approach, we examine a range of objectively measured and self-reported outcomes, including metered gas consumption, for a control and upgrade group, before and after the upgrade. We drew our sample from a large home energy efficiency programme in Ireland, The SEAI Better Energy Communities Scheme, which provides funding for whole communities to upgrade the efficiency of their dwellings. Dwellings were selected for upgrade based on need, allowing us to control for observable dwelling characteristics correlated with selection into the trial. The upgrades undertaken were extensive relative to the average home energy improvement, Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

Carbon taxes, poverty and compensation options

“…The impact on solid fuel consumption, which can be in excess of one-third of total energy expenditure, on average, within Irish households (Curtis and Pentecost, 2015), has not been considered. Coyne et al (2018) note that while many social housing households reduced their use of secondary fuels following retrofit, self-reported purchases of coal and other fuels remained surprisingly high in the first year post retrofit. This suggests that households may need some time to gauge the thermal efficiency impact of retrofits and adopt new energy use behaviours.…”

“…For example, applicants to the Better Energy Homes scheme between 2009 and 2015 seeking to undertake 'deeper' retrofits are more likely to abandon their application, possibly due to administrative and logistical burdens (Collins and Curtis, 2017). Even where retrofits are cost free to the occupants and managed by the landlord, a fraction of rental tenants are reluctant to participate in home retrofits that ultimately will provide benefits to the tenants in terms of improved comfort and lower energy costs (Coyne et al, 2018). However, preliminary findings of ongoing research at ESRI related to the Better Energy Warmer Homes, which is a 100 per cent funded retrofit grant scheme for qualifying disadvantaged households, finds that the probability of abandonment of a retrofit application declines as the intensity of retrofit increases.…”

“…Only a small number of studies in Ireland are based on measured changes in energy consumption. Scheer et al (2018) in a study of metered gas use by just 210 households following home energy retrofits find a 21 per cent reduction in gas consumption. The associated retrofits predominantly comprise roof and wall insulation, and/or boiler upgrades.…”

“…1 kWh/m2/year) is 37 kWh. While the Scheer et al (2018) study relates to owner-occupied housing, Beagon et al (2018) estimate a 14 per cent reduction in gas consumption following deep energy efficiency retrofits by a social housing landlord. A separate study in a social housing setting find 23 per cent and 12 per cent reductions in gas and electricity consumption across 20 households following energy efficiency retrofits (Rau et al, 2020).…”

Operational Characterisation of Neighbourhood Heat Energy After Large-Scale Building Retrofit

“…A social housing retrofit project took place in Ireland during 2014 with available dataset size n=188 [23]. Household interviews report occupant quantities ranging from one to eight persons.…”