4 INDUSTRY NEWS
FROM THE EDITOR
James Parker
So the Future Homes Standard, or at least the full Government response to the consultation, is here, confi rming that Option is the way forward i.e. greater airtightness plus a heat pump, PV, waste water heat recovery, and distributed mechanical ventilation. However, how exactly each home’s design will best weigh up these ingredients in practice, to reach the currently mythical 75-80% reduction in emissions, won’t be apparent until the industry has the Home nergy odel H software.
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The replacement for SAP assessment software, now put back until , is the mechanism that shows designers and builders the impacts of their chosen mix of fabric and renewables. Due to the delays to the Standard, as housebuilders haggled over key aspects like area, an interim’ SA . had to be launched. This will be used to comply with the FHS, and will also apparently run in parallel with H for a couple of years post the latter’s release. elegates at our recent round table on the heating and renewables aspects of HS compliance including housebuilders were scratching their heads as to how this will pan out you can see many choosing to stay with SA until it’s verboten.’
The other big change we are awaiting is the overnment’s response to the consultation on the revised NPPF – will it remove barriers to building, as hoped Heat pumps are far from the only thing neighbours might choose to object to, as hundreds of thousands of homes start to appear in people’s backyards.
We don’t yet know how the Iran confl ict will play out in the form of impacting gas prices it could be the catalyst for a closing of the spark gap’ between gas and electricity prices. ore likely, sadly, is that both of those will go up.
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The Canopies – a Greencore Homes development in Oxfordshire of 42 ‘Passivhaus standard’ dwellings embodies the builder’s commitment to producing ‘better than zero’ homes
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The Canopies, Greencore Homes – go to page 26
16/04/2026 11:12 registration here:
Octopus nergy is an energy provider taking several proactive steps to drive energy effi ciency, including ero bills’ guarantees. It’s also working with ground source heat pump fi rm ensa, plus energy provider T, to scale up installations. The pump system manufacturer has welcomed the Future Homes Standard, which is agnostic on which heat pump type should be chosen, saying it is helping unlock thousands of orders from ritain’s largest housebuilders. ensa says it also provides the market certainty needed to scale manufacturing operations in the years to come, yet they admit the “contest is underway to decide which type of heat pumps will dominate for new homes.”
rid capacity will be a huge factor for electricity-based solutions in future, and fi rms like ensa are putting a lot of stock in this leading to a shift toward the currently much more expensive and land-hungry ground source option. ensa is working with Octopus on a multi-utility model to provide networked heat, and this a potential area that receives some focus in the Future Homes Standard, which supports the sleeving’ approach to heat networks for developments. Tensa’s solution was selected by arratt edrow to deliver utility infrastructure for the ’s largest net ero carbon housing development, in enarth, Wales.
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All solutions need investigating, and perhaps the possibility of heat networks using the earth’s free resource is under-explored.
James Parker
Managing Editor James Parker
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