More news on plans to keep the government’s flagship green deal on track emerged this week. Building reported that DECC is considering prolonging current home insulation programmes to smooth the transition and prevent the collapse in insulation installations.
The idea is being mooted as the David Cameron commissioned the Cabinet Office to come up with ideas to make the scheme viable when it “soft” launches in October this year.
Currently homes insulation can be subsidised by the energy copanies under programmes called CERT and CESP but these programmes are due to be replaced with a new energy company obligation known as ECO. This was due to be be launched in June but the details are still to be finalised. The government’s own impact assessment shows loft insulations and cavity wall insulations are set to fall by 93% and 67% under current plans.
David Adams, director of energy at Willmott Dixon Energy Services, said the move to “actively consider approaches to transition from CERT or CESP is helpful for everyone in the industry”.
This week energy minister Greg Barker said he would find extra funding for a marketing campaign to drive take up of the Green Deal.
His commitment followed a report by the environmental think tank Green Alliance, which concluded: “Only a government-initiated, national campaign can provide the visibility, trust and wider context that will help to guarantee the success of consumer facing energy schemes.”
Luciana Berger shadow climate change minister told the Guardian:”That No 10 has had to call in the Cabinet Office to fix up the green deal is a clear admission that the current proposals are in a complete mess.”
Meanwhile social landlords say they are uncertain of the benefits and are unprepared for the Green Deal according to a survey of 127 social landlords carried out by Sustainable Housing and contractor Willmott Dixon.
Asked about their preparedness for the green deal, just a third scored their organisation as ‘highly’ or ‘very highly prepared’. This is despite one in three respondents saying that the green deal will be very important in achieving their goals for improving the energy efficiency of their stock.
Richard Griffiths, policy consultant at the UK Green Building Council, said: ‘There is just a lot of detail to be resolved and because of that, quite a lot of organisations are not quite thinking they can prepare for its arrival.’
