ZERO CARBON
CLEANER AND HEALTHIER LIVING Some of the UK’s first mainstream modular zero carbon homes have been unveiled with the promise of zero bills, saving consumers £1,000 a year. ilke Homes is calling on its partners, its supply chain and the wider construction industry, to work together to speed up delivery. As has occurred with EVs, collaboration between parts manufacturers and Government incentives have significantly brought down the cost of materials and ensured more skilled engineers have been trained up. Like a car chassis, with manufacturers like Audi, VW, SEAT and Skoda using the same chassis for different types of vehicle, modular homes can be specified for a range of price points using the same base. This means that there is an opportunity to find significant efficiencies through scaling up manufacturing.
1 Housing is responsible for more than a quarter of the UK’s carbon emissions. Last year, only 1.6% of newbuilds in the UK were built to the top standard of energy-efficiency, equivalent to just 3,457 homes. Currently, like electric vehicles (EVs) and most green technology, zero carbon homes cost a bit more than standard fossil fuel heated homes because of the cost of installing additional insulation, heat pumps and solar panels but also as incentives are still provided to developers from gas network providers. Factory manufactured homes create less waste and are more thermally efficient because many of the components
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come pre-assembled or are cut and manufactured using robots. Having already trialled zero carbon homes for five councils and housing associations, Yorkshire-based ilke Homes is now rolling out a mainstream zero carbon home to help investors go green. ilke Homes says that the small cost premium will be eradicated totally by 2030 thanks to reductions in key component costs and advances in its manufacturing processes, robotics and AI-driven design. This means investors and housing associations will not have to pay more for a zero carbon home while consumers living in an ilke ZERO house will pay nothing for energy, saving nearly £1,000 a year on bills.
WWW.VOLUMETRICMAGAZINE.CO.UK | SEP/OCT 2021
“Government is rightly pushing construction to drag itself into the 21st century and we need to replicate the successes seen with solar, wind and EVs where industry came together, drove down costs and drove up skills,” says Dave Sheridan, Executive Chairman at ilke Homes. “We’ve spent years investing in our factory and this mainstream zero-carbon home is a great example of how the private sector can respond to politicians’ net zero pledges. There’s a huge opportunity here to tackle fuel poverty while helping investors meet their green targets. But we need our supply chain and our partners to work with us. Driving down the cost depends on scale and equally, we need to act now. “Building zero-carbon homes now will pay off very quickly, because very soon councils, housing associations and homeowners will face carbon taxes and stare down the barrel of huge retrofit costs which can all be avoided. Low-carbon technologies are improving all the time but while some firms claim we don’t have enough of the right skills to build zero carbon homes en masse now, we believe that these are the very vested interests that have held back construction over the decades.”
