Abstract

The UK housing stock, like the majority of Europe, is facing significant challenges around carbon reduction, energy consumption and energy affordability. Energy consumption and the cost of fuel continue to increase and the housing stock becomes ever older. At the governmental level there has been, and continues to be, a strong drive to tackle these issues through the retrofit of the housing stock. Although the installation of energy efficient technologies in the homes of owner occupiers is still the exception rather than the norm, the social housing sector are pioneers in this area and have been installing new technologies and interfaces in homes at a greater scale over recent years. To some extent these households are serving as test sites where we can understand how new technologies and interfaces are being adopted, installed, understood and used in-situ. By drawing upon a systematic literature review and empirical research this paper will report on early findings emerging from research conducted during a ‘Discipline Hop’ funded by the UKs Engineering and Physical Research Council (EPSRC). This has entailed a social scientist working more closely with engineers to assist in addressing the current mis-match between what we know about people and communities and how technology is developed, supplied and installed in households. The research has had three main aims: 1. To better understand the issues faced by technology providers, developers and housing providers when supplying energy reducing technologies to vulnerable households 2. To better understand the barriers and concerns to participating in energy reducing programmes by vulnerable households 3. To develop a co-developmental link between technology providers, developers and housing providers and vulnerable households in order to better address fuel poverty in the UK. Central themes emerging from this project which explores some of the emerging challenges associated with how these technologies are being implemented will be presented. Acknowledgements: This research is made possible by a Discipline Hopping grant from the Engineering and Physical Research Council (EPS

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