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New Fuel Prophet Website

Posted: 02/08/2006

Following the development of the Fuel Prophet Tool by the Association for the Conservation of Energy, a new website for the tool has been launched. The Fuel Prophet Tool is aimed at helping housing professionals and policy researchers decide on which energy saving refurbishment measures should be supported or installed.

This is done by calculating the performance of measures individually or as combinations in a variety of typical UK dwelling types, and under different fuel price conditions. By modelling the cost-effectiveness and the reduction in fuel bills from a refurbishment measure in a single dwelling, Fuel Prophet can help the user balance budget constraints with fuel poverty reduction and energy efficiency targets, even under future fuel price uncertainties.

The software, which can be downloaded from the website, is especially aimed at hard to treat homes (solid wall or off the gas network or both), although cavity wall options are included. Fuel Prophet uses a “typical” flat, terrace, semi or detached home as the basis to which measures can be applied, in all there are 17 different scenarios, including terraced houses with solid walls and coal fires.

As part of the attempt to combat fuel poverty, the programme identifies the payback in terms of fuel cost saved by the occupier against the initial purchase and installation cost, plus annual maintenance costs.

Fuel Prohet ranks a number of measures and measure combinations, and allows groups of measures to be selected, by heating, insulation and renewables, and sorted by least initial cost, least amortised cost, payback, net present value or greatest savings to tenant.

It also indicates those measures which are most likely to provide long term benefit to occupiers under various fuel price scenarios, and suggests how to minimise the exposure to the risk of future fuel poverty due to fuel price changes

For more information, or to download the software, visit www.fuelprophet.org.

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