Living Environment

In the focus area “living environment”, attention is given to the relation of the living space inside the house to the space outside. The living environment includes the architecture of the house, in the sense that the architect designs the boundary between the inside and outside of the house. It also includes the spaces between the houses: the plants, birds, soil, water and sunshine, as well as the human activities that take place there. These activities include the utilisation of spaces for work, care and recreational activities - as well as for activities such as crime and polluting and damaging the environment.

We have found that crime increases if people – out of fear for crime – withdraw from the outside to the inside of the house. The high levels of crime can be reduced dramatically by increasing mutual involvement by residents in the activities within the spaces between the houses. This has also been found for other cultures and for American cities.

Four projects are discussed under this focus area: Retrofitting Efficient Energy Technology to Low-Cost Housing (RET), New Energy Efficient Designs (NEED: New Energy Efficient Designs for new low-cost housing), the Peoples’ Power Project (PPR) and the Urban Wildlife Project.

Between 1994 and the start of 2001 over 1.1 million low cost houses were built with government subsidies that were provided under the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) of the post-apartheid government that took office in 1994. These houses were built at low cost, but they are not designed for people with low incomes – they require high maintenance cost. No energy efficient building procedures have been used with the result that the overwhelming number (as high as 97% in some cold winter areas) of RDP housing occupants find their houses too cold in winter and too hot in summer. To overcome this deficiency occupants spend a large percentage of their limited resources on energy to achieve thermal comfort: a cost that could have been avoided with better planning. 

The cumulative negative effect of the lack of thermal efficiency of low-cost housing is severe. Not only does it contribute to the energy crisis in South Africa, but it also negatively affects the health of the occupants as well as the ecology. For example, the 2004 FRIDGE report states that annual productivity losses and healthcare costs due to illness and death caused by air pollution in South Africa - of which pollution caused by households constitutes a substantial portion - could be set at R17.51 billion.

Nova has developed a method that makes it possible to build an energy sufficient subsidy house that: 

• Needs no artificial heating in winter 
• Needs no artificial cooling in summer 
• Addresses the interface between technology and social processes by a functional integration of the two aspects 

Technically this is done by increasing the thermal efficiency of the house through designs that ensure the optimal combination of a variety of thermal factors, such as internal heat sources, size of structure, geographical location, orientation, shade, thermal mass of structure, insulation, ventilation, optimal usage of solar energy. A special solar heating and cooling device, called a Trombe wall, was also included in the experiments.

RETROFIT OF EXISTING SUBSIDY HOUSES

In the Retrofitting Subsidy Housing Project (RET) we experiment with designs to improve the poor thermal performance of the millions of low-cost houses that have already been built and are still being built with taxpayers money. It stands to reason that retrofitting will always be more costly and less efficient than building properly in the first instance. The Retrofitting process is also inconvenient to the inhabitants.

The aim is to find ways in which existing low-income houses, that generally are extremely energy-inefficient, can be made efficient by way of retrofitting suitable technology. 

During 2008 Nova retrofitted energy efficient technology to 10 low-income houses in eMbalenhle, near Secunda in the Mpumalanga province, and monitored the technical and social effects. The project was funded by ISOVER and THRIP (a fund of the Department of Trade and Industry). 

The results of the thermal intervention were as follows (using Nova’s criteria): 

• Effectiveness Positive: the duration of daytime comfort levels achieved in the test houses were 217% higher than that of the control group. 
• Desirability Positive, even dramatic: people felt better about themselves and about life a a whole 
• Affordability Negative: The cost of implementation is too high. ISOVER has undertaken to investigate possibilities to cut material and labour costs 
• Sustainablity Uncertain: will be monitored over time 
• Beneficiality Uncertain: the longer term impact on the health of the household as a system will be monitored over time 
• Repeatability Negative, due to high costs 

Potential: Currently, a second phase of design is being conducted in order to curb costs and thereby reaching a situation where all the Nova criteria will be satisfied. Four possibilities are being investigated:

1. The possibility to make the technology affordable by generating income from the trading of carbon credits (the technology leads to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 2 ton CO2eq p.a.). 
2. The use of more affordable materials. 
3. The use of a subsidy.
4. The possibility of self help exists, thereby reducing the cost of  installation and the inconvenience factor as well as the risk of crime.

In 2009, we plan to do a pilot project with at least 50 houses in order to validate designs and gain statistically more reliable data.

Reports available: Holm et al, 2008. Assessment on the Impact of Retrofitted Insulation Technology on the Quality of Life of Low-income households. Nova Institute: Pretoria

PEOPLE'S POWER PROJECT

The aim of the People's Power Project (PPR) is to implement energy efficient technology in three communities that are near each other: the high-income Golf Estate of Woodhill, Pretoria, the neigbouring section of Garsfontein, a more traditional South African suburb where GarsCom is active as community initiative, and a section of the township Mamelodi. Woodhill and Mamelodi respresent two types of neighbourhoods that are growing fast in South Africa. 

The plan is to develop three models, one each for high-income, middle-income and low-income communities, to reduce electricity use and to become generators of electricity from renewable sources, rather than only consuming it. If implemented by enough households, it could prevent the building of a new coal-based power station.

Nova co-operates with GarsCom, a community organisation in a middle-class suburb, Garsfontein, in Pretoria. GarsCom is well established, and very successful in becoming an open, safe, friendly and involved community. It is open, but through resident involvement it has very low crime levels in an area where housebreaking is common and often violent. The same resident involvement will be a vital factor in PPR. Garscom and Nova have also initiated an urban wildlife programme together with the domestic energy programme.

Garscom is adjacent to the expensive housing estate, Woodhill, where expensive, very energy inefficient houses have been built before the power crisis had started in South Africa. The Woodhill-community is also willing to co-operate. 

Nova has been working in Mamelodi for a number of years (see the sections on Economy and Care in this website), and will make use of its existing social networks to initiate the energy project in a section of the township.

The PPR will investigate the technical possibilities for these three communities to save and generate electricity, as well as the social desirability of such technology. The project will involve the following:

• Draw up a profile of present energy use in these two communities
• Identify available technology that would be suitable to help reduce energy use and/or generate electricity from renewable resources, such as solar power
• Draw up a strategy to implement and evaluate the most promising technologies
• Draw up a marketing strategy to involve the communities and to ensure eventual active support in mass implementation
• Investigate the policies involved and their impact on eventual mass implementation