Interview with Robert Stringer, Energy Services Executive, Energia

Robert Stringer joined Energia in 2022 as an Energy Services Executive, working within the residential segment of the company’s Energy Services team. His role sits at the intersection of project delivery, stakeholder management, and regulatory compliance.

Over the past four years, Robert has led deep retrofit programmes for several local authorities, overseeing the upgrade of more than 800 social homes. The projects were delivered under the Energy Efficiency Obligation Scheme (EEOS) and the Government’s Energy Efficiency Retrofit Programme (EERP) and transformed some of the most energy-poor properties in the country. Robert’s day-to-day responsibilities span relationship management with government departments and agencies, contract drafting, audit oversight and project data analysis. 

Question: You’ve overseen deep retrofits across two local authority programmes. What do projects of that scale look like from the inside? 

Initially we meet with the local authorities to establish their goals and expectations, and then we create a map of how we’re going to achieve those targets, followed by a more detailed project plan. This often needs to begin with tenant outreach. Tenants are the people most affected by the retrofit and they need to be on board. There’s going to be disruption to their property and some people don’t like dealing with change. So it’s important to lay out clearly what is being done and why, and to be very frank and honest about what the project will involve.

Our objective is to work within budgets to ensure the properties receive comprehensive retrofits that are transformative, both for the quality of life of the tenant and for the carbon footprint of the property. We’re switching oil or gas boilers to electric heat pumps to reduce carbon output and making the properties more energy efficient and airtight so that overall energy consumption in the household reduces.

For a typical local authority house, what does the energy efficiency upgrade involve?

The formula tends to be a full wrap: external wall insulation, triple glazing and new airtight doors. There will often be a top-up of attic insulation as well, and the heating system is replaced with a heat pump. 

There’s a wide range of property types across local authorities, each with different priorities and constraints. In one partnership, for example, we’re working on an occupied protected structure. It requires us to balance strict conservation rules with the need to cut energy use and improve the building’s airtightness.

Heat pumps replace fossil fuel systems in these retrofits. What has the experience of rolling out heat pumps at scale taught you?

A heat pump is quite a radical departure from what most people are used to. It provides a low, consistent heat rather than short bursts of high heat, and that’s a fundamental change to how people have previously heated their homes.

The main instruction is to set and forget. Keep the heat pump on all the time, adjust the temperature in small increments, and try not to interfere with it too much. Communicating those small but important behavioural changes is essential.

Recent changes to the Energy Efficiency Retrofit Programme have moved away from the D2-to-B2 requirement towards a minimum energy uplift threshold. What will that mean in practice?

This adjustment is something we had been pushing for over several years, as the D2 cut-off was fairly arbitrary and unnecessarily limiting. With the new rules, local authorities don’t have to be as selective with their housing choices. They can bring us a much wider range of properties, including shallow retrofits. The change has introduced a lot more flexibility and funding into the scheme.

How can policymakers improve the progress of large-scale retrofit programmes?

Government funding streams should be communicated much further in advance so that local authorities can plan accordingly. Without knowing allocation figures in advance, tenders can’t be properly valued and execution is delayed. 

What’s your view on the progress of Ireland’s energy transition?

There’s a great deal of positive transformation happening, and the right attitudes are in place. However, there is a shortage of construction and contractor personnel. We need to make clear to teenagers in school that there are options beyond going into tech or pharma. There are genuinely good, worthwhile jobs out there that are going to help transform this country. Young people need to know that this is a viable and rewarding career path.

We also need more data on retrofit in local authority-owned homes. Behaviours in social housing are different, and if there are things going on that we’re not aware of we need to understand them so we can adjust our approach accordingly.