An extra £200m funding for the Green Deal has been announced following the launch of the consultation on the scheme, Building reported.
Chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said the money would help incentivise the Green Deal and would be used to provide a time-limited ‘introductory’ offer to boost the early take up of the energy efficiency scheme for existing homes.
Alexander described the extra funding as “an offer that could save early adopters hundreds of pounds” and as “a fund to get the Green Deal off to a flying start”.
Alexander also revealed that under next week’s Autumn Statement, the government would be hand-picking 40 infrastructure schemes and giving them ‘new priority’ status.
Launching the consultation earlier in the week, energy secretary Chris Huhne said the Green Deal will create around 65,000 insulation and construction jobs by 2015 and attract £14 billion investment in a decade.
But the announcement on the extra funding came after industry leaders questioned the lack of incentives for consumers to take up the scheme.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change has seconded staff to look at marketing the Green Deal ahead of its start date in October 2012, but the government faces criticism that the lack of detail will not see any great take-up until 2014 at least.
UKGBC chief executive Paul King said the consultation launch was welcome but said the document needed to be backed up with much more detail around incentives.
“Given recent announcements from government which have dented investor confidence – such as the cuts to the Feed-in Tariff – the government must articulate a clear, long-term vision for the Green Deal so that industry has the confidence to invest and ensure it has the skills to deliver,” he said.
And the Federation of Master Builders reiterated their concern that the scheme will see SME builders miss out.
“The danger is that the large energy and utility companies will hoover up the Green Deal market and squeeze out local builders which is very bad news both for the building industry and local economies,” said FMB director of external affairs Brian Berry.
The UKGBC said three key areas need to be addressed by the consultation including incentives to encourage take-up of the Green Deal, proposals to give confidence to the private sector and a smooth transition from CERT and CESP to the Energy Company Obligation to maintain the momentum within the insulation industry.
