A recent article by the Guardian (16 May 2025) has shone the spotlight on analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank which states that occupants of homes built in the past seven years have paid about £5bn more in energy bills than they would have if regulations requiring new homes to be low-carbon had not been scrapped in 2016.
This news is shocking, but unfortunately not surprising, and gives further stimulus to our ongoing campaign for higher standards, most recently evidenced in our Future Homes Standard consultation response which attracted support from 250+ prominent industry organisations.
The situation could be even worse when taking into account the ‘performance gap’, with actual energy use in some cases known to be over four times what was predicted. Building performance will be the focus for our upcoming symposium on 2nd July, with discussions on the latest BPE research, guidance and tech.
Jess Ralston, energy analyst at the ECIU thinktank that produced the analysis, said:
Governments giving in to housebuilder lobbying have left Britain with more poor-quality homes, more dependent on foreign gas, and more exposed to the highly volatile gas markets during the ongoing energy crisis. Unless we lower our gas demand by building better, warmer homes that run on heat pumps then we’ll just have to import more from abroad, as the North Sea continues its decades-long decline in output.”