Los llamados “linchamientos”

Green Deal Go Early

The twelve houses Carbon Co-op was responsible for were the only part of the GM pilot project that was focussed on owner occupied housing, with the high-cost works funded by zero-interest loans from the DECC money. Their task was to recruit participants, perform household surveys and assessments and design packages, and project manage the whole house retrofits at the installation stage. It did this by first conducting a launch event in September 2012 that combined the first round of promotion for Green Deal Go Early with the public launch of the Carbon Co-op and a drive to recruit new members – both as potential candidates for the Go Early retrofits themselves and for their support, both financially through membership fees and in terms of voluntary capacity and contribution to running the organisation.

Through the course of 2013 Carbon Co-op narrowed down around forty possible applicants to the twelve homes it was intending to use for the Go Early pilot project. This selection was based on a number of factors: firstly, the twelve pilot homes were partly selected in

geographically diverse locations to represent the whole of Greater Manchester region, and to encourage engagement in communities and spaces that were not currently engaged with retrofitting. Secondly, the houses were selected to represent different types of housing:

“we’ve tried to select them so we’ve got a semi-detached, a victorian terrace,

different types of house like this, so there is an understanding that if someone comes and says I’ve got a 1930’s semi-detached, they can go to a manual which has tested it and has a proven solution that works.” Board member 2/Project manager

A third factor in selecting the pilot houses was the commitment of the householder. Producing successful demonstration projects required that the householders receiving the whole house assessments or the 0% grant from DECC via GMCA were very motivated to carry on and do the works that were recommended and unlikely to pull out. This meant that they needed to meet certain socio-economic criteria as well, such as owning their own house rather than being a tenant, and being able to make the loan repayments comfortably.

164

Over the course of 2013 Carbon Co-op conducted the whole house surveys, made the recommendations and calculated packages of works and costs, procured a single contractor (Jackson and Jacksons) through the GM Procure Plus resource, utilised URBED for

architectural specifications for works and negotiated a series of obstacles to the works being completed. There were significant issues with acquiring an ECO contribution –

specifically for the solid wall insulation - to reduce the overall costs of the works because of the changes to the ECO in 2013 which reduced the amount available from energy

companies and created inconsistent pricing in the industry. There were issues with some of the homes requiring planning permission and significant contractual problems between URBED, Jackson and Jackson and Carbon Co-op, which resulted in inconsistent costings for some of the householders, and although Carbon Co-op received extra funding from GMCA, a number of householders withdrew from the scheme and only eight houses remained. The eight houses that remained had their measures installed throughout January 2014, with works each costing £40,500 on average and including the full range of technical measures listed above. Figures 15 and 16 below show some of the works in progress:

165

Figure 16 Internal wall insulation being applied to Carbon Co-op house

Whilst the whole house retrofits became the Carbon Co-op’s main activity in 2012 it was also engaged in a number of other energy-efficiency related activities, in order to avoid dependency on single funding sources and protect against policy vulnerabilities.

Generating Success

In Generating Success, Carbon Co-op provided technical and project management support through workshops and feasibility studies for a series of four renewable energy retrofit installations in community buildings in the rural areas around Greater Manchester, including one biomass boiler and three solar PV arrays. This was done in partnership with the Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisations (GMCVO). The projects were intended to produce lessons and build extra capacity in the Greater Manchester voluntary sector about how to manage and complete community renewable projects.

Energy Monitors

In 2012 Carbon Co-op also became involved with developing, and testing open source energy monitors, running a series of workshops building the monitors with members and interested parties, and installing them in the GM Green Deal pilot houses. This monitoring data is being used and interpreted not only by Carbon Co-op but also by Salford University,

166

to support other retrofit projects in Greater Manchester through its involvement in the retrofit advisory group to the Low Carbon Hub.

Community Champions and Carbon Co-op in Stockport

In 2012 and 2013 Carbon Co-op ran community engagement programmes funded by Manchester City Council and then Stockport Council, along with Network for Social Change, to recruit ten ‘community champions’ for retrofit and energy efficiency, promoting the idea, the service and increasing membership. The intention was to “get people to network” (Carbon Co-op board member). This was based around a strategy of residents hosting advice sessions in their homes, with their neighbours. This included sharing experiences of retrofit, providing technical advice – or access to it through Carbon Co-op – about retrofit measures and potential issues such as preserving heritage features, and practical

information about costs, suppliers and installers and planning permission. The Carbon Co-op in Stockport programme also offered a competition for ten free whole house assessments, on the condition that within a year the households receiving those assessments would start some of the works recommended.