A community regeneration agency will build 100 houses as examples of how regular homes can be transformed into low-carbon houses that consume 80% less carbon.

The launching of the demonstrator houses came as innovators from Black Country Housing Group (BCHG) won a grant from the Technology Strategy Board. The plan is to reduce the heat loss through existing solid walls of a building drastically as well as to put in novel technologies in new houses that create “electricity far more efficiently than the UK’s national grid does today”, BCHG said.

“Last year the UK barely built 110,000 new houses but the nation has 27m existing homes, most of which rely heavily on climate-changing carbon fuels. We want to be at the forefront of the battle to protect our future tenants and the planet they live on”, said BCHG director of sustainable development, Richard Baines. “We are very grateful to the Technology Strategy Board for making it possible for us to transfer some of our R&D to existing housing.”

BCHG is also a part of a chemical engineering project at the University of Birmingham and is building new reasonably priced homes in Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Birmingham.

The grants are a part of the Technology Strategy Board’s grants in the Retrofit for the future programme, with almost 400 candidates applying. The money will go to development of designs, specifications and working out the cost for a dramatically energy efficient makeover.

www.bcha.co.uk