Karli Edmondson
Posted: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 10:54 am

Insite Energy, the recently formed joint venture between Rydon and Fontenergy providing meter reading, billing and associated services to organisations running district heating systems, has been awarded a contract by Southern Housing Group, one of southern England’s largest housing associations.  

The contract consists of the provision of tariff setting and metering and billing services to 82 properties, a restaurant and a new library at Church Elm Court, in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.  The heating is being provided by a new district heating centre producing energy from a combination of biomass wood pellets and natural gas.

Responding to the decision to award Insite Energy the contract, Gareth Jones, MD said:  “I am delighted that an organisation with the standing and reputation of Southern Housing Group has awarded us this project on such a landmark development and I hope that this will be just the beginning of a long lasting and productive relationship with them.”

Commenting on the selection of Insite Energy, Tony Hughes, Regional Director at Southern Housing Group for the Thames Gateway Region said ‘We welcome the expertise and knowledge that Insite Energy bring to this exciting new development. Through this partnership we hope to deliver innovative and efficient energy services to our residents which will also benefit residents of the Borough using the new library and one stop shop facility’.

From 2011, all providers of social rented housing will be required to meet Code for Sustainable Homes level 4 on new developments.  This will increase to code level 6 in 2015. One of the most efficient ways of achieving this target cost effectively is to introduce communal heating systems using either biomass or Combined Heat and Power (CMP) units.

In addition, the Energy Services Directive (ESD) now requires that customers on both new and existing schemes owned by companies with aggregate consumption of over 75GWh per year are provided with individual heat meters to record actual consumption.