European social housing experiment to be trialled in Rochdale

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A European Union initiative aiming to reduce household energy costs is to be trialled in Rochdale.

SHOWE-IT, a real-life trial in Social Housing, of Water and Energy efficiency ICT services has chosen Shawclough as one of its trial sites.

Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s bid for funding for the scheme was part of a consortium bid, and means Rochdale will join St Etienne, France, and Botkyrka, Sweden, in trialling the initiative.

“It’s a small but interesting scheme,” Andy Wadsworth, Head of Business Support at RBH, said.

Heywood-based specialists Hopwood Electrical Services Ltd were awarded the contract for the project, which begins early next month (December).

In total 14 households have volunteered for the scheme, which will provide near real-time information to individual tenants on their energy and water consumption as well as training on how to reduce usage.

“It was always going to be small scale,” Mr Wadsworth explained.

“If it goes well it would be extended but my guess is the crucial thing will be the cost.”

The European Union funded programme hopes to help residents achieve a 20% saving on energy costs and cut water consumption by a quarter.

Mr Wadsworth explained RBH want to help residents combat rising costs and hopes other schemes can follow in future.

“Due to increasing fuel prices and fuel poverty issues becoming more and more, RBH recognises that it has an important part to play in helping tenants to reduce their heating costs,” he said.

“This pilot project will be the first of its kind for RBH, hopefully with other energy-related projects to follow in the near future.”

Peter Harrop, Hopwood Electricals’ Managing Director, said: “We’re pleased to be part of this new energy-saving scheme.”

Manager Lee Harrop added: “We were very interested in this project as it means we could have a look at this new technology.

“It’s certainly important to us to be involved in these innovative schemes - new technology is coming out every couple of months so it’s great to be able to work with it.

“It seems a very simple bit of kit and it is clear lots of thought has gone into it, so if it works out we can look at using it again in future.”