Refresh was pleased to be featured in the latest edition of Director NI – the bi-monthly magazine of the Institute of Directors in Northern Ireland.
The article discussed the important journey NI householders were embarking on to reduce their carbon emissions and the role which Refresh would play in helping them achieve this.
You can view the full publication at the link below and the full text of the article about Refresh has also been posted below:
IOD Magazine Sept-Oct 2021 Web.pdf
“The UK became the first major country to commit to a legally binding target of achieving Net Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050 and is set to renew this commitment at the forthcoming COP26 conference in Glasgow in November. Locally, the Northern Ireland Executive has also committed to achieving Net Zero Carbon by 2050. Over 20% of all carbon emissions in NI emanate from residential properties, and if Net Zero by 2050 is to be achieved here a pathway to decarbonising how we heat our homes will have to be found.
At the same time, according to the latest NIHE House Conditions Survey, there remain around 130k (18%) of households here living in fuel poverty. Any pathway to decarbonising home heating will therefore need to be mindful of this and provide consumers with a transition to lower carbon heating sources which is affordable.
Refresh Property Solutions Ltd is a newly formed energy services business that aims to play a significant role in the decarbonisation of NI homes. Although a newly formed business, the management team, which is headed up by three IOD members (Bill Cherry, Nicola Cherry CDir & Jack Peel CDir), is vastly experienced in the NI heating sector.
Refresh provides NI consumers with affordable, greener home heating solutions combined with improved energy efficiency measures (“Whole House Solutions”). In the short to medium term, Refresh will have a key focus on delivering the most cost-effective means of realising carbon savings within home heating in NI. This means the connection of the approximately 100,000 households which are currently connectable to the Natural Gas Network but which continue to heat their homes using Heating Oil or Solid Fuel. If all of these 100,000 properties were to convert to Natural Gas, immediately NI’s annual CO2 emissions could be reduced by over 425,000 tonnes per annum. For context, this would have roughly the same environmental impact as removing over 25% (300,000) of the diesel/petrol engine cars from NI’s roads.
Recently Refresh were successful in winning a competitive tender to become the Managing Agent responsible for the delivery of Whole House Solutions for Phoenix Natural Gas under their 2021/22 Northern Ireland Sustainable Energy Programme (NISEP) Scheme “Efficiency Plus”. Through this scheme, Refresh expects to connect over 200 fuel-poor customers to the Natural Gas Network. In addition, loft and cavity wall insulation measures will be delivered allowing householders to reduce energy costs and achieve reductions in CO2 emissions collectively of 850 tonnes per annum.
In NI, the modern polyethylene constructed gas network makes it better suited to the supply of Biomethane or Hydrogen gas than possibly any other region in the UK. This presents a real opportunity for NI to lead the way in the use of these zero-carbon fuels.
In the longer term, Refresh will continue to invest in training to develop a skilled workforce that is proficient in all emerging lower-carbon heating technologies. Refresh is also developing service offerings for other low-carbon technologies such as Heat Pumps for off-gas grid customers and EV Charge-Point Installations. We aim to seek to offer NI consumers a One-Stop Shop for their Greener Home Upgrade.”
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