The cash was raised thanks to the Clean Growth Fund, Eurazeo’s Smart City fund, and Aviva Ventures. The trio join existing investor Copley Point Capital in the 12 year old company.

Cheltenham-based Rendesco works with property developers including Cala Homes & Telford Homes to install low-carbon, networks based on ground sourced heat.  It also operates networks which supply clean heat and hot water to over 8,000 homes nationwide.

As Britain’s third largest source of CO₂ emissions, ridding carbon from heating buildings is a critical challenge.  Rendesco says it is at its forefront.

Today’s new investment comes Whitehall’s closing earlier this year of final consultations on the Future Homes Standard. Its final measures will underpin the incoming government’s plans to decarbonise home heat, including banning from next January the installation of gas boilers in new homes. Similar legislative measures are also driving decarbonisation across Europe.

The cash will accelerate Rendesco’s growth plans, aimed at providing a low-carbon alternative to gas grids and cutting consumers’ bills.  Part of the money will be directed at higher tech, yielding cleverer, more consumer-focused systems to manage home energy.

The new investment is separate from, but complementary to, Rendesco’s joint venture with Last Mile Heat.  Rendesco’s new build home solutions are owned by Last Mile Heat, enabling house builders to install ground source heat solutions in their developments at a considerably lower cost than with other low-carbon heat sources.  The joint venture has already developed a pipeline of £150m worth of clean heat infrastructure, boosting futureproofed heating of dwellings.

Rendesco’s founder Alastair Murray said: “I am pleased to welcome Clean Growth Fund, Eurazeo & Aviva Ventures as investors in Rendesco.

“This funding means Rendesco is incredibly well capitalised, in parallel to the significant capital available to deploy into capex costs via Last Mile Heat.  Their collective expertise and support will be invaluable as we pursue our ambitious growth plans, rapidly expanding our clean heating solutions to reach millions of homes.”

Susannah McClintock of specialist investors the Clean Growth Fund enthused: “Decarbonising heat is critical to achieving Britain’s Net Zero targets. Rendesco’s heat network solutions provide a cost-effective, efficient route to delivering the low carbon heat required for the transition away from gas to renewables. This investment aligns with our commitment to empower early-stage entrepreneurs to tackle the climate change crisis.”

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Octopus Energy is teaming up with award-winning sustainable housebuilder Verto to bring forward more developments in its ‘Zero Bills’ campaign.

‘Zero Bills’ is a world’s-first smart proposition, enabling customers to move into homes which are fully kitted out with green energy technology – including solar panels, home batteries and heat pumps – For at least five years, Octopus & its partners guarantee no energy bills will be necessary.

After accrediting 600 ‘bill-free’ homes last year with other developers in Essex, the supplier says it is now extending the scheme to Verto and to all other British home builder meeting its standards.

The duo will collaborate on commissioning 70 homes in Exeter & Cornwall, fitted with high-grade insulation, on-site PV generation and in-home batteries, ensuring no purchase of energy is necessary.

Octopus says its pilot schemes have proved that existing in-home technologies are enough to outfit properties so that occupants need pay nothing for extra energy.

The homes will be managed by Kraken, Octopus’ proprietory energy management software platform. It will balance generation sources such as heat pumps and PV panels against storage and load from household appliances, ensuring no external bill need be levied.

Homes currently account for 13% of Britain’s carbon emissions, Octopus observes.

Besides Verto, a further 80 home development firms have entered its accreditation process, including several volume housebuilders.

More than 1,200 homes have been submitted already for assessment under the Zero Bills initiative. Accredited plots span affordable homes, shared ownership, private and rented housing.

Octopus uses its proprietary Kraken software platform to assess buildings’ eligibility. To qualify, new developments must be fitted with solar panels, home batteries, and forms of electrified heating such as heat pumps. Many newbuild homes are already fitted with these clean energy solutions as standard.

Zero energy bills benefit sellers of new properties, Octopus argues.

“We’re on a mission to make ‘Zero Bills’ the new standard for homes”, said Michael Cottrell, director of the supplier’s initiative. “By partnering with developers like Verto, we’re scaling this efficient green technology to homes everywhere while driving down costs for consumers.

“The technology is already proven. Through Octopus’ proprietary offering we can now bring it all together and optimise it in new houses. Together with forward-thinking developers, we can make energy bills and home emissions a thing of the past.”

Read here for more information.

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Ian Rippon, CEO of technical standards assurers the MCS, told the committee that photovoltaic panels on home rooftops “as a mainstay of the Future Homes Standard is critical”.

Presented by the government as the biggest re-think yet of much criticised, seldom enforced building controls, the Future Homes Standard is intended to improve Britain’s notoriously lax standards of home insulation, and ease dwellings towards Net Zero compliance.  Implemented in part since June, the new measures’ full introduction is scheduled for 2025.

“The problem now is that it’s – (PV installation) in pockets, depending on local building regulations”, Rippon explained.

Beside him, Chris Hewett, boss of lobbyists SolarEnergyUK, said industry expectations now are that “pretty much every English home built from 2025 will have some solar generation capacity”.

The government’s Energy Generator Levy, a windfall tax on the sector now facing at least one challenge in the courts, Hewett described as “a mistake”, producing an “unlevel playing field”.  It gives solar developers no incentive to offset it through investment, said the lobbying boss, despite Britain’s dire need to be weaned off natural gas.

Quizzed on UK-wide targets to have 70GW of solar power capacity generating by 2035, – against 15.5GW today including farms – , Hewett replied that the aspiration was “definitely enough… and it’s feasible”.

Solar’s projected rise to contribute 10% of Britain’s power demand, up from 4% now, is needed to meet national needs growing from increasing electrification of heating, homes and transport, the PV industry believes.

Installers and suppliers expect about two-thirds of UK solar PV capacity by 2035 to come from ground-mounted racks, with residential and commercial roofs providing the rest. Floating solar farms, such as on a Thames Water reservoir near Heathrow airport, could contribute after 2035, said Hewett.

Written evidence cited by Anna McMorrin MP warned that grid connections are not speeding up. Farm developers face waits well into the 2030s.  The MP described the National Grid as a “pretty broken system”.

Regional targets for grid connections could spur DNOs to respond quicker, Alastair Buckley, Sheffield University’s professor of organic electronics believed.

Committee chair and Conservative MP Philip Dunne later suggested that grid access could be the subject of its own dedicated inquiry.

Green MP Caroline Lucas suspected so-called Smart Export Guarantees offered by power retailers are too miserly to woo homeowners into solar adoption.  MCS boss Rippin agreed. “It’s been taken over by the economics of cheaper solar. There is a problem of fairness” he added.

Cheap capital is needed to spur homeowners to install PV, Hewett told MPs. He cited 0% loans made available by Scotland’s government for insulation, as well as retro-fitting PV & heat pumps.

Dr Chris Case leads technology innovators at Oxford PV.  Two years ago, the firm’s perovskite enhancement pushed standard silicon cells to a record conversion efficiency of over 29%. That’s fully a third better than current standards on the world’s roofs.

Case described as “perverse” the Treasury’s treatment of VAT on home batteries storage systems. Homeowners must shoulder the tax’s 20% burden when adding a battery to pre-installed panels.  Installing both at the same time attracts no VAT.

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The D-BEIS secretary chose December’s third weekend, a fortnight into a cold snap, to feature himself touring his own home on Twitter, laying draught excluders under doors and turning off dormant appliances like routers.

During her catastrophic 45-day premiership this autumn, Britain’s shortest serving head of government had ruled out such a publicity campaign, citing to colleagues its allegedly patronising nature.

The eighteen million pounds confirmed as committed by Shapps to inspire low-cost home improvements is considerably less than the £ 1.5 billion in job creation & saving of heat committed by the May & Johnson administrations in their Green Deal, a programme targeting extensive efficiency upgrades to a planned 600,000 homes.

On grounds of expense, and amidst cumbersome administration by US outsourcing contractors ICF, in February 2020 Rishi Sunak, then serving as Johnson’s chancellor, quietly cancelled that scheme without notice to insulation firms, in an attempt to recoup more than 90% of its budget unspent.

Shapps’ less ambitious “It All Adds Up” drive today centres instead on ‘simple, low-cost, or no-cost” actions, yet unadopted in most UK homes.

Turning down to 60 degrees the flow temperature of domestic boilers, could yield £100 a year in a typical home. Switching off devices at the wall socket £70. Lagging doors, and putting cling film across windows might save £60, according to D-BEIS. A new website supports the campaign, part of the government’s Help for Households largesse.

“It’s in everyone’s interest to use every trick in the book to use less energy while keeping homes warm and staying safe”, said the energy secretary.

“For very little or no cost, you can save pounds. It all adds up, so I urge people to take note of the advice in this new campaign”, Shapps added.

At 46%, fewer than half of Britain’s estimated 28 million dwellings achieve an energy efficiency grade of C or above, on the eight-grade Energy Performance Certificate scale. In 2010, that figure was only 10%.

Energy industry participants lined up to support D-BEIS’ “It All Adds Up” campaign include Dame Clare Moriarty of Citizens Advice, by law the independent monitor of government policy on home heat. Energy UK for suppliers, and Jonathan Brearley, Ofgem director.

Moriarty said: “This winter, many people will be worried about how much they might have to spend to heat their homes. These tips should help cut down the cost of staying warm.

However, we know lots of people are living in cold, dark homes because they’re stretched to their limit and simply have nothing left to cut back on. If you’re in this situation, speak to your energy supplier or contact Citizens Advice for support”.

D-BEIS’s campaign repeats the government’s pledge to trim 15% from energy consumption in Britain’s homes & workplaces by 2030. To that end, the announcement flags up the £ 6.6 billion earmarked this parliament, and a further £ 6 billion committed before 2028.

Other support for buildings insulation includes £ 4 billion in the ECO4 programme targeting poor households, and £ 1 billion in the ECO+ drive, which extends help to dwellings not previously eligible for upgrade under the long-standing ECO ( Energy Company Obligation ) programme

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