Kensa project wins top prize at Housing Innovation Awards

Kensa project wins top prize at Housing Innovation Awards

An innovative energy switching project completed by Kensa Heat Pumps and Hanover Housing Association has won the title ‘Most Innovative Retrofit Scheme’ at the Housing Innovation Awards. Celebrating the ‘leading lights’ in the housing sector with ‘pioneering spirit and inventive and original schemes and services’, the Housing Innovation Awards honoured Hanover and Kensa’s first joint project at a glittering ceremony in Covent Garden on the 8th February 2017.

The ‘Most Innovative Retrofit Scheme’ was the outcome of a commitment to improve Hanover’s residents’ wellbeing and help reduce fuel poverty. The scheme’s micro district design – where a Kensa Shoebox heat pump installed inside each flat is connected to one of 12 communal boreholes - suited the restricted site, and also ensured eligibility for Energy Company Obligation (ECO) funding provided by Kensa’s unique partnership with EDF Energy, along with twenty years of income through the Non Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).

Awards judge John O’Brien, Director of BRE Innovation Park, praised the retrofit project’s contribution to combatting fuel poverty: "The heat pump solution tackled a number of issues with retrofit, namely for properties off the gas network or what we call hard-to-treat, but also trying to make sure its affordable as well, and the payback periods are good. Fuel poverty is a huge issue and if we are going to be able to make sure we have the right retrofit solutions, especially around heating, then this is an opportunity to show that we’ve addressed a very difficult area of the problem.”

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