Taylor Wimpey launches zero carbon ready homes trial

TW Sudbury

Taylor Wimpey has launched its zero carbon ready homes trial of five prototype properties on a live development site.

The trial aims to demonstrate how the housebuilding industry can deliver homes to 2025’s Future Homes Standard (FHS) in different ways through varying combinations of technologies. Homes under the trial will run fully on electric, featuring triple glazing and enhanced building fabric.

Inside the five prototype properties at its development site in Sudbury, Suffolk, Taylor Wimpey will test a range of energy efficient and low carbon technologies to “radically reduce the carbon emissions and footprint” of the homes. This includes a number of air source heat pumps, heat pump cylinders, electric panel heating, smart cylinders and mechanical ventilation heat recovery. The housebuilder will also test waste water heat recovery, underfloor heating, “thermaskirt” heated skirting boards, infrared radiant heating, “sleek” photovoltaic solar systems, battery storage and electric vehicle charging.

Taylor Wimpey said the homes had been designed to be sold and inhabited, with the new technologies working “seamlessly” and efficiently for customers. The trial, it explained, would seek to find solutions to producing scalable, high quality, zero carbon ready homes, while allowing it to collate customer feedback on the properties.

Taylor Wimpey said that building zero carbon ready homes at scale required a “generational step change” in home building as well as in the way customers use their homes.

“The launch of the trial on a live site is a critical part of accurately assessing performance criteria through the full development lifecycle: from concept to customer experience,” the firm stated.

Taylor Wimpey’s development site will include an educational hub to showcase its approach to the FHS and the low carbon technologies and materials harnessed for the pilot. The five trial plots are expected to be completed “in the coming weeks”.

The business said the trial was the industry’s “first research concept testing low carbon technologies through multi-specification prototype homes on a live development site”. It hailed the launch a “major milestone” since the publication of its Net Zero Transition Plan in March.

Taylor Wimpey’s Net Zero Transition Plan comprises a four-stage roadmap to achieving net zero emissions across its value chain by 2045 which is five years ahead of the government’s target. Taylor Wimpey said that since 2013, it had reduced its emissions intensity by 51%.

This adds to the company’s environment strategy, launched in 2021, which includes “ambitious targets” up to 2030 on climate change.

Taylor Wimpey said its zero carbon ready homes trial would challenge the housebuilder and its supply chain partners. It is working with engineers and energy experts “to introduce the most cutting-edge products into the homes to meet the requirements of FHS”.

Jennie Daly, Taylor Wimpey’s ceo, said: “The launch of our zero carbon ready homes at Sudbury marks an important milestone in helping us identify the best ways to reduce the energy intensity of our homes as well as identifying the challenges that will need to be overcome to do so at scale. This is a critical step in our journey to ensure we deliver on the UK’s net zero ambitions as well as deliver the new homes the country desperately needs.

“The learning outcomes for our business through the early stages of this trial have already been huge from a design, technical and production perspective and are rapidly advancing the skills and knowledge required to design, build and sell these next generation homes.”

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