Net-zero housing projects are on the rise across the UK. In 2024, Octopus Energy promised to
build 100,000 Zero Bill homes by 2030
, and some of the projects have already begun. Housing developer
T
hakeham is set on building 6,000 Net-zero houses in the south of England.
Steve Hunt, 42, a pilot, and his partner Kate live in a three-bedroom house in West Sussex without a single energy bill.
They live in the first of one of Octopus’s
new Zero Bill homes. Here, Hunt shares the downsides and the upsides of life without a boiler.
My partner and I had been house hunting for our first home for months. I was desperate for a garage for my bikes. We viewed all kinds of places: older houses and new builds. In the back of my mind, I was always assessing how easy these places would be to convert to
renewable energy
, if we needed to.
It felt like something we might need to do soon. The Government has made noises about banning gas boilers altogether, so we didn’t want to buy a home and then have to throw away a brand new boiler. I thought it made sense to look for homes which we could easily add a heat pump, allowing us to use the latest government grant that covers the cost.
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We saw a
new build
we really liked; we loved the house and the location, but it had a brand new gas boiler. It just seemed so wasteful. Why buy a brand new house with such outdated technology? So we kept looking.
Rising bills have been a concern for some time. In 2023, when bills went crazy, it created a lot of worry for me for the first time. As a pilot, I’m away from the house a lot, but still, our bills were averaging about £150 a month for a three-bedroom house. That was working out at £1,800 a year.
Then we heard about the new Templegate housing development, with 48 homes, in Burgess Hill, on the edge of the South Downs National Park. We viewed a three-bed with a garden and a garage, with footpaths into the countryside. It was completely different from the other houses we saw. For five years, this new housing development, built by Thakeham in partnership with Octopus Energy, would have zero energy bills as the electricity system and heating are completely renewable. We have solar panels already installed, and we have a heat pump installed. Plus, as it’s a new build, it is well insulated, so our home stays warm all winter and doesn’t have the problem of poor insulation that other houses with heat pumps have.
We bought the house in September for £565,000. We were the first people to move on to the housing development, which was very weird at first. But the major drawback was the price. We definitely paid a premium for the house. We were essentially paying up front for the cost of all the equipment that goes into the house to make zero bills possible, which was more than we planned to pay but it’s a worthwhile investment. Our
solar panels
, for example, are fully integrated into the house, and all their wiring is already set up.
A couple of years ago, solar panels needed a lot of maintenance, and they needed to be cleaned regularly. Nowadays, the panels self-clean; the rain and dust wash off them, even if it snows. Our panels are completely maintenance-free, just like a gas boiler. And the same for our
heatpump
. We don’t touch it. When we go on holiday for a week, it’s actually more energy efficient to leave the heatpump on rather than turn it off. It uses more energy to turn it back on again.
As time goes on, and heat pumps become more popular, I think it will be a very big selling point when the house goes back on the market. But right now, the market price is definitely more expensive because the house has all this equipment. In five to 10 years, it should pay for itself.
But we are also motivated by a desire to have
green energy
. I have been interested in renewable energy for years. I have been driving electric cars for a while now, and I have done a lot of research into the various forms of renewable energy and how it all ties into how the national grid works.
At the moment, we have a contract with our energy tariff provider that promises our bills will be zero for five years. They still control our battery storage from the national grid. After our contract is up, they will decide if they want to carry on with our zero tariff. But even if we go to a non-zero bill tariff, it would still be very economical compared to what we were paying before.
We haven’t even reached the peak of summer, and we have already generated far more energy than we have consumed. Excess energy is then sent back to the national grid for them to store when electricity is expensive. When it’s very cheap, our energy provider fills up our battery with cheap electricity, which we then have as storage. It is much more efficient and means the national grid is much cleaner.
The best thing is that I know we will have no variability in our bills. It doesn’t matter what happens in the world. For the next five years, it will cost nothing.