What we're building with partners: three projects shaping the future of Home Retrofit Planner
* This is our monthly update from the Community of Practice Tech Leads *
We've got three projects running in parallel right now, all focused on making Home Retrofit Planner (HRP) more useful for the people and organisations doing the hard work of decarbonising homes. Here's a quick look at what we're working (and why it matters).
Better retrofit plans for everyone
The way a homeowner thinks about retrofitting their home looks very different from the way a professional designer or assessor approaches the same project.
Working with partners, we're developing plan formats tailored to different users: people managing their own DIY upgrades and architects or designers leading more complex projects. We're drawing on real-world examples from organisations like Futureproof Cumbria and Changeworks, making sure our formats align with the latest industry standards (including BS40104 and PAS2035).
The goal is a Home Retrofit Plan that actually works for the person reading it, whatever stage they're at and whatever their level of expertise. We'll be testing early drafts with partner organisations and gathering feedback from assessors before anything gets built into the platform.
Making heat pump surveys smoother
One of the most common frustrations we hear from partners is duplicated effort. Surveyors collecting data for a heat pump installation often have to re-enter information that already exists elsewhere, or work around tools that don't talk to each other.
We're mapping out how partner organisations currently handle heat pump surveys by talking to teams at Changeworks, CSE and Futureproof Cumbria, to understand where the overlaps and pain points are. From there, we'll design a data export format from the HRP that feeds directly into heat pump design and sizing workflows, reducing double-handling and making life easier for installers and surveyors alike.
This is early stage work, but it has real potential to streamline a process that currently involves a lot of manual workarounds.
Smarter advice on solar, batteries and EVs
Solar panels, battery storage, electric vehicles, dynamic tariffs: these are increasingly part of retrofit conversations. Modelling them well is genuinely complicated and we want to make sure the advice the HRP gives is realistic and useful...not just technically present.
This micro project is about getting the foundations right: reviewing different modelling methodologies, understanding how consumption and export patterns actually work for real households and improving how we handle carbon accounting and cost calculations. We'll also be looking at how to represent more complex or phased systems, because not everyone is installing everything at once.
Once we've agreed an approach (with input from tech leads and partners), we'll update the platform's modelling, reports, and guidance for assessors to match.
Working in the open
All three projects are being shaped by the organisations and practitioners using HRP in the field.
More updates to follow as things progress! Keep an eye on our newsletter for more info.
