Leeds has acted as the testbed for a pioneering space technology that could help the UK to map heat loss from houses.
The test flight, the first in the UK, marked a significant step forward in the race to decarbonise national housing stock with the deployment of cutting-edge space technology to identify the buildings most in need of retrofitting action.
The specially equipped plane, mounted with a sophisticated thermal imaging camera, flew over Leeds to gather data on the level of heat loss from individual buildings. This aerial thermal imaging technique, developed by Satellite Vu, offers an unprecedented level of detail and scale, allowing local authorities to more effectively target funding for retrofitting homes by being able to identity the hottest buildings in the data set, those most in need of retrofitting and insulation.
The data collected will be used to identify priority areas for insulating homes, enabling a more efficient and effective allocation of resources to upgrade and decarbonise housing stock. The technology Satellite Vu are developing will be able to aggregate areas of data and single out the leakiest buildings using an index spatial analysis.
The flight was funded by the net zero charity MCS Charitable Foundation and carried out in partnership with Leeds City Council. The council will use the thermal imaging data to help residents better understand heat loss and to motivate retrofitting in the private sector.
The data will also be used to strengthen the case for local area-based retrofit and other schemes by the council that have already had a transformative impact, such as the recent whole house retrofit of 300 mixed-tenure Victorian back-to-back homes in the Holbeck area of the city.
