Heating the homes of the future
Money Box
BBC
4.2 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 25 January 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Money Box takes a look at three innovative energy projects changing the way people heat their homes to try to improve efficiency and reduce bills.
First up is the village of Swaffham Prior in Cambridgeshire where residents and the local council have backed a scheme using air source and ground source heat pumps to warm people's homes. A new, multi-million pound energy centre of the edge of the village provides the energy through a newly installed heat network for any residents of the village's 300 homes that want to join.
Secondly, Dan Whitworth visits the University of Salford and the researchers behind its 'Energy House 2' project - a scheme which has seen two, modern, full-size, detached homes built by developers Barrett and Bellway inside a science laboratory. This allows scientists to create climate conditions to put the homes to the limit to test how effective they are at being energy efficient.
Finally a visit to Gateshead examines a mine water scheme being run by the council which uses the warmed water of disused, flooded coal mines to help heat council buildings and homes. More than a dozen buildings run by the council, including the local college and Sage Gateshead are signed up to the scheme as well as hundreds of homes. We'll examine how practical is it and what kind of a difference the scheme makes to people's bills.
Talking us through each of these schemes are Dr Tina Fawcett from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University and Ben Whittle from the Energy Saving Trust.
Presenter/Reporter/Producer: Dan Whitworth Researchers: Sandra Hardial & Star McFarlane Editor: Jess Quayle
(First broadcast 3pm, Wednesday 28th December, 2022)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one. |
| 0:06.5 | I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:11.2 | I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects, |
| 0:16.0 | relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life. |
| 0:22.4 | So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature, |
| 0:28.3 | and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience, and maybe that's you. |
| 0:33.6 | So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:39.5 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:43.2 | Hello, welcome to this special Moneybox. |
| 0:46.2 | We're going to dedicate the entire programme to the one issue that has dominated the letters, |
| 0:51.1 | emails and messages we've received from you all year long, and that is the rising |
| 0:55.9 | price of energy and the increasing cost, unaffordable for many, of heating our homes. But rather than |
| 1:02.8 | look back or dwell on the presence, we're going to look to the future. What are the challenges we |
| 1:07.7 | face when it comes to being more energy efficient, when it comes to bringing |
| 1:12.1 | our bills down and, crucially, what are we doing about it and how much will it all cost? |
| 1:18.0 | To try to answer those questions, we're going to take a look at three of the most innovative, |
| 1:22.7 | forward-thinking energy schemes in the UK, and then get two experts to give us their thoughts on those projects. |
| 1:29.4 | As such, I'll be joined by Dr Tina Fawcett from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University |
| 1:35.0 | and Ben Whittle from the Energy Saving Trust. |
| 1:38.5 | But before we hear from them, let's get straight to our first report where I've been to meet |
| 1:42.8 | the residents of a small village in |
| 1:44.5 | Cambridgeshire which, in one of the first projects of its kind in the UK, has recently installed |
... |
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