Affordable Eco Housing; is this what we should be building? | 100% Independent, 100% Electric

[Music] it's actually quite sunny and i'm in wales believe me that is rare but this is cardiff that is an amazing affordable home we've come to see and this is fully charged so i've come to park erin which is a housing development uh in the ronda valley in wales and it because all this stuff about like let's do some eco homes and let's make some homes that are more energy efficient it's always one or two or maybe three houses here it's 220 houses they're building with solar pv built in with batteries with ground source heating if you look at all these houses there's no chimneys this housing estate doesn't burn anything to make the houses comfortable and warm and nice to live in doesn't burn anything and this is how houses should be built and will be built in future but we just need all the builders of the world to literally pull their finger out stop making excuses and build proper houses like this for people in the 21st century [Music] so james i'm really impressed with what i'm seeing here because it's just so important that this sort of thing's done i'm seeing three affordable homes with solar panels the whole roof not like a bit of a solar panel stuck on top the whole roof is solar tell me what else is going on in these houses so interesting so this is this is how we see the sort of the future of housing you know this these homes are fully electrified so first of all there's there's a higher standard of building fabric we've got renewable energy technologies but really importantly they're able to communicate as an aggregate to be able to start supporting our kind of future energy system so there's lots of really clever renewable tech in here these you know these properties which is a pilot development for us we're working with tyrion homes tearing homes are an affordable landlord so we can work together with tyrion to look at this to look at this to look at this model as a as a future housing model uh and you know these are for everyday people right you know this is all about giving everybody an opportunity to live with a lower carbon footprint and so when so the solar is will obviously power the house when you're there but there's so you've got batteries in there as well yeah and no gas heating no gas yes no gas so we've got ground source heat pump systems here so we've got 170 meter bore holes that go under under this plot right here that that feeds these three properties so we've got a ground source heat pump paired to intelligent energy storage which is a hot water tank by a company called mixergy who i think you may know i do know very well yeah and and then we also have uh generation and electrical storage as well right i mean one of the other things you mentioned which i was fascinated by do because i do this manually all the time is the actual um you know the washing machines the tumble dryers the ovens and everything they're all talking to each other yeah so it's it's really we've got uh appliances in here we're using some samsung appliances which will connect into our platform through our api you know we're looking at the high load items how do we how do we first of all we make sure that they don't all all spike at the same time meaning that we go off the battery you know off the battery operation but also how can we start to change behavior right uh so the approach that we take is that we can do a lot of the mitigation on energy for the for the resident but some of those are behavior changes they are doing things at different times so with our user interface we'll allow we'll we'll tell them it's now's a really good time you know right turn the tumble dryer on yeah or let us turn it on for you you know that that's that's that's that's that's the sort of model where we can start to educate that you know like now now would be a good time because we're not in it's not you know it's not quite not quite five o'clock yet so you know so the demand is still pretty low the sun is shining yeah now would be a good time you know in three or four hours time it won't be and yeah and we can start to you know start and i mean the people are gonna i think learn that simply because they'll at the end of the month they'll see their electricity bill and go either oh my god that's quite big or oh my god that's so tiny yeah exactly you know our vision is one where homes are you know a player play a role of reacting alongside the future energy system so now rather than turn the power stations up and down we can change the demand right yeah you can effectively turn the house up and down exactly i mean the old way is generating power in big power stations yeah and and and sending it out to what is a fixed demand the new way is intermittent energy like wind and solar but then tuning the demand to to fit the generation right so on a on a windy night or a or a sunny day you know we can harvest as much energy as we can for free and that's clean energy and then and then when you know later on in the day the occupant is there for the occupants to use and then in terms of construction costs then presumably because there's another set of houses here that have very similar sizes basically i'd rather live in these but the cost differential presumably this does does cost more at the moment there is i mean we it's some it's somewhere between on on the larger site to somewhere between 15 and 20 000 as an additional capital cost so we are paying more at the moment we do expect that cost to come down dramatically but then if you look at it on a life cycle basis these properties they're saving a lot of money every year you know so and we haven't yet attributed a value to the carbon that they're saving but you know in time council tax would you may change and yeah there might be other sort of uh sort of carbon levies that we might have to you know manage as people so uh you know these these are very close to zero carbon now and within the next sort of five to ten years as the grid decarbonizes they'll be zero carbon so they'll they'll take benefit and i think i mean i think that's something we're going to see is you know high carbon homes are gonna you're gonna be paying more which is basically rich people's big houses with massive gas boilers they should pay more we have to find a way to create a differential between um housing that is uh renewable is green has a lower carbon footprint versus traditional and and the market at the moment doesn't doesn't force that change you know yeah on paper a valuer might say this is worth exactly the same right um but that doesn't factor in to count you know all those future policy changes that are heading we've got to get the whole country next zero by 2050 everything um so housing is actually one of the relatively easy solutions in there i i if you think about uh decarbonizing aviation or farming or chipping you know all this stuff is really hard you know yeah the technology exists spending less and living more comfortably you know that's you know kind of makes sense i take this as a quick as i take this as a quick win so yeah no it's fantastic really really good [Music] so then there but the heat pump then is taking this i just think this is so cool that you've drilled down here yeah there's a lot of people i think are familiar with like ground source heating where you've run a hose under the grout like yeah you know a few inches under the ground but this is straight down the deeper you go the more stable the temperatures are so so we've you know we're 170 meters down here under this under these plots and you know that that ground temperature is stable you know all year round and that's that's the reason we like ground sources because at the time of year you need the heat the most you're looking to stable temperatures which is which is why we tend to favor ground source but you know it's not it's not all ways that you can do it and and we look you know we would consider all sorts of you know renewable tech but then it is the pump that is pumping that fluid around in the ground source i'm assuming is that quite a small pump it's not using a lot yeah it's it's it doesn't yeah it absolutely doesn't doesn't use much energy at all so you know the the the pro the heat pump here provides sort of 400 efficiency overall heat to this building that's not bad is it when you think of like well an internal combustion engine 25 and your heating system is 400. yeah and particularly then if we run it so that we take advantage of the the the off-peak pricing you know the lower pricing of course you don't have to have it on all the time no and we can we can bring it you know bring a building up to temperature before the electricity pricing gets high you know because a lot of skeptics will say oh you know electricity is four times the price of gas so you're not going to get a saving but but these properties will prove that we will get a save and actually we think as in providing heating power to this building we're expecting savings to be half a traditional energy bill right so it's uh it's it's you know it's a real opportunity to optimize the comfort but also the the cost in which we purchase the electricity and then the other thing i've noticed there's not radiators as we what you would expect with a wet heating system so is that under is it underfloor yeah it you know work i mean i did you know i ideally paired to a low temperature system you know underfloor works quite well i think we something that we may see very on site but in this in this opportunity we wanted you know i think that the ability to hold a little bit more mass and allow you to sort of i guess play with that residence time where you can bring the temperature up you're building up to temperature you know and and kind of and reduce the amount of time run time of the heat pump at the at the peak time right yeah it's so important though as i'm sure you'll you know i know that's what you feel as well that when you're building new houses it's just so critical that these things are used now andy i've got to say seeing this now is really exciting seeing this many houses being built on this what you're doing here is just it's just well it should be happening everywhere it should be happening everywhere shouldn't it and we don't know why it's not you know it's crazy there's 225 you know so it's 225 houses and i mean in terms of the the overall their their potential overall energy usage are you covering close to what they will consume with with the they're nearly there they're very high performing so we worked with tyrion and poble group who are um they're the partners on this scheme along with the contractors and all the team building of course yeah uh and so they're they're a long way towards net zero and what we've done with these homes is allow them that they we don't need to go back to them in future right to do anything else to get them that zero so they will become zero carbon over time right and that's an important thing i think an important message for that for the purchasers and for the people that live here in the rental properties yeah to just know that they're in you know in maybe a dozen years they'll be net zero they're very close already as the grid decarbonizes so really they're the the only reason they're not net zero now is because of the grid not their own yeah yeah so we've we've taken the approach with uh with the partners that we're always working to get firstly the energy demands down you know the building industry has already learned the mantra of fabric first right so we worked with our partners to make sure that the envelopes are really good they're well sealed they don't have drafts they've got good levels of insulation all of the right stuff built in yeah because it doesn't break it doesn't need maintenance it's there for life and that's where you start but once you've got the energy demands down at that point you've really got to look at how how you deal with the remaining energy demands we still want hot water we still want 21st century quality of life you know all of that so we have got you know as you can see photovoltaics on practically every roof yeah some of them uh are we got seven kilowatt peaks on some of these uh so they choose way more than most people would have on their house yeah yeah it's a big pv array on some of them others have got less uh but that's depending on the on the layout on the orientation and what we didn't want to do is build homes which are series ranks all facing the same way you know it's more important that you build good spaces and places that people will love and cherish and feel like home yeah that can also generate yeah but ultimately if they if they don't feel like it's home if it's not a great place to be it's not it's not going to be kept it's not going to be looked after and in 30 years time we'll be bulldozing it yeah so you've got to build a good place first and then look at how you deal with the energy secondarily but secondarily is important you know we've got to get that working yeah the solar panels are really the only visible bit of what is a completely different home yeah it's designed to be like a normal home and that's kind of the point you go into these it doesn't look different you live in them how you'd normally live you don't have to do anything weird or wacky you don't have to hug the tree before you walk in that kind of thing but the pv is on on the roof you've got storage for hot water so we've got thermal storage very smart uh tank from our partners there we've got battery storage which is storing the electrical we've got a ground source heat pump so there's bore holes going down something around about 60 stories down into the ground wow to couple to the to the geothermal heat and that's pulling up into a shoebox unit in in the home [Music] i'm assuming then the benefits from the point of view of the tenants are lower energy bills if nothing else that's it so we've got i mean i guess the most important thing is is reducing the energy costs right uh and and secondly giving them the opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint because you know as time goes on that's something that's going to be more and more important to people as we've seen over the last couple of years these properties give them that ability to to to save money they've we've built in other things that allow them to save some time and convenience in in a more complex property but also save the planet at the same time [Music] and then all the homes are on three phases is that right yeah which is unusual in this country it's common elsewhere in europe common common in europe um and absolutely three-phase it's primarily three-phase you can just see the cable sticking out by the unit by the meter box there uh it's three-phase for cars right because um whilst you can charge a car you can charge a car on a 13 amp plug it'll just take you a week or so well yeah a couple of days uh seven and a half kilowatt charges are good for overnight charging but what we're keen to do is use these homes as part of the energy grid right and by and using them as part of the energy grid means we need to be able to draw power from the grid when the grid wants to get rid of it yeah and that means the quicker we can draw it the better right so from our perspective slightly selfishly the quicker we can charge a car when there's a demand response call the better with these homes can support the grid right um and the uh as always building site is yes but from the from the from the resident's point of view of course if they get home at five o'clock and they know they're going out again they're a bit low it's a fast charge yeah 22 and a half kilowatts goes in at more than 100 miles an hour depends on the car as you know but so yeah it's a fast charge right and that's really where the three-phase comes into its own it's it's having gone through painful retrofits just to see you know you start from that point yeah is the house well insulated yes does the door have wind coming around the side no exactly those things are so critical yeah get the basics in get it built in as you say it's much cheaper to do it built in yeah so we've got uh ball holes going down we've got the heat pumps in we've got the batteries we've got the whole water storage we've got a fiber connection that goes into each home right separate to the residents so that all of the systems can be run as grid connected right now that means that if the broadband router goes off for the resident then yeah they're they're streaming of whatever the next big hit series is yeah uh clearly fully charged yeah um then then that might be interrupted but we've still got reliable connections to control the kit and that means that when we're in conversations with the district network operator then we can be saying to them yeah we are confident that we can turn these homes up or down to respond to the grid right so if the grid puts out a call and says we've got way more wind than we need we'll be turning on the hot water tanks we'll be turning on the electric batteries if the car's charged plugged in we'll be charging the car it's like hey guys all you can eat kind of make the most of it yeah because it helps the grid and it helps the residents yeah so it's a good response both ways right so yeah tucked under there is our right is our control unit we we call that the building energy engine or the b for sure right uh because b is obviously pretty important to us as well so that controls all of the other bits of kit and means that the residents aren't worrying about all of this cabling and pipe work and components and all the rest of it they get on with living their life right uh using our platform and things that's running or everything for them anticipating their demands and making sure they're getting a low-carbon low-cost lifestyle right so that's kind of important the wires going into that are very when it's wired up yeah really yes it's nearly the minute it's on the way yeah yeah just let's really underline that there is no gas on the side there's no gas on the side at all so it's entirely uh electrified yeah and so those pipes coming in are from the borehole right and there's a small loop around feeding a couple of homes each has a borehole or two connected onto it those are the incoming right they go into the shoebox unit there and that's the heat pump that is the heat pump that's that that's the heat for the whole home that's so that extracts the the the heat from that the borehole concentrates it and puts it into the central heating system is that a yes the thing to the easiest way to think of a heat pump is it condenses the heat right to make it usable and um people go does that work when it's below zero and of course the easiest way to remember that is actually it's not below zero because if you're thinking kelvin it's 270 kelvin even if it's minus three celsius right so it's got a lot of energy in it and all it does is it condenses it to make that up to a temperature that we find useful and that's providing the heating and the hot water uh what else we got in this we've got our three-phase incoming electricity right that's as we said outside that's primarily to feed for the car so we can use that to help support the grid draw power from the grid when there's demand um pipe workout which will get insulated we've got the battery that's the battery the house battery right so that's a five kilowatt hour battery right and that's enough obviously to run the home what we what we try and do with these homes is run them outside of peak periods so the national grid as you'll know uh has a peak period between about four and eight pm when everyone is using power and there isn't much generation unless it's particularly windy so what we try to do with these homes is effectively shift all of the electrical demand outside of that peak period right so it's coming from the roof it's going into the battery and it's being used probably between four and eight pm when when the grid prices are highest the grid demand means that it's the dirtiest grid at that time and so we're running off zero carbon when everyone else is running off 250 300 grams per kilowatt hour yes uh to give that kind of that kind of impact all right so so all these houses then if there's a which we we're witnessing an excess of energy negative wholesale price all those things you can charge the battery you can heat the water you can charge the car i mean there's you've got some yeah this is the storage capacity yes that's the key and our mantra we dreamt up some years ago now but we follow kind of a reduce balance generate approach and that works right first of all reduce the demand so the fabric here is really good look at energy efficiency look at how that can work before you even think about generating look at balance and that means storage that means be able to put the energy whether it's thermally or electrically put it somewhere useful you can use it later square it away yes and then generate and the generator is last because um small scale generation isn't necessarily the most efficient and it's not necessarily the best looked after because it's by residents that aren't necessarily going to get up and clean the panels and all the rest of it uh and and it's and so from that point of view we say do it it helps but don't necessarily redesign yeah you know don't as we said earlier don't do everything south facing don't build this build a place that people will treasure yeah i mean i'm an architect by training so it comes from that you know build a place people will treasure and if you build a place people treasure they'll look after it it'll have a long sustainable life that's a really good outcome if you can also get some generation on there brilliant you can get some balancing in there even better and make sure it's built with low energy demands and that's kind of the reduced balance generate mantra love it [Music] so that's it i just want to thank sarah holmes for showing us around this incredible development i think this is so exciting they're also doing other bigger developments that we're going to go and look at next year with even more there's one one with 600 houses which are all like this these places are going to soon become net generate net generating compass these are power stations you're looking at the times of the day when this will be exporting a proper amount of power into the grid is amazing what they're doing they're going to be so cheap to live in and when the word spreads when the people who live in park erin tell their friends and neighbors from other places what their electricity bill is and that's all they pay for they don't have gas i think the news is going to spread and people are going to go i want a house like that i don't want a nonsense house where it has a stupid old dated gas boiler goodness sake sorry i always go off on a rant on those things that's all uh please do subscribe to fully charge we're going to be looking at a lot of other exciting building developments uh coming up please do look at the youtube membership and uh the patreon link obviously if you want to have a quick quick scan of the old patreon link we'd always be hugely grateful we're very very uh indebted to all the wonderful people who support us on patreon uh but that's it as always if you have been thank you for watching

Channel: Fully Charged Show

Views: 187,811

Keywords: robert llew, electric car youtube channel, green energy comment, grid storage technology, renewable energy youtube, green technology review, renewable energy comment, renewable energy electric vehicles, latest news on renewable energy, kryten, ev show, fully charged show, robert llewellyn, fully charged, zero carbon, Eco Housing, Affordable Housing, solar, solar roof, heat pumps, net zero, electric cars, insulation, green recovery, zero carbon living, home charge points

Id: uI7wxNtrorQ

Length: 22min 54sec (1374 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 27 2020