CAR has been chosen to fine-tune the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s new model for household energy use. We are helping DECC make sure that the model gives sensible estimates of the energy savings from upgrading homes in different ways.

The National Household Model builds on the work we did developing the Cambridge Housing Model, and this will be used by the Department for policy decisions and statistics releases from 2014.

We are preparing housing data for the model, to give an accurate snapshot of current energy efficiency of the housing stock, as a baseline for modelling. We are also looking at the model’s Energy Calculator, to check that energy and carbon savings predicted by the model are credible, and stand up to testing against the best scientific research on energy use.

Past modelling work in the field has been criticised for over-estimating the savings that are possible from better energy efficiency – largely because of inadequate calibration against field data. This work is important to make sure that policymakers understand how policies like the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation will really affect energy use and carbon emissions.