Loft insulation to plummet when Green Deal introduced

The Green Deal, the government’s flagship green policy to transform the energy efficiency of 14m homes appears doomed to fail, with the revelation of its own figures showing the number of lofts being lagged is set to plummet by 93%, says the Guardian.

Home efficiency such as insulating lofts and filling cavity walls are seen as the cheapest way to cut bills and carbon emissions. Current schemes which subsidise insulation have resulted in just over 1m lofts a year being lagged. But the new data, obtained by Building magazine and from Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC) own impact assessment says this will plunge to just 70,000 a year under the green deal. This is also far below the 2m per year required to meet climate targets. For cavity walls, the current 510,000 a year being filled will fall to 170,000, a drop of 67%, and again far below the 1.4m a year required.

“These stunning figures show that the government’s green deal is in danger of becoming a car crash,” Luciana Berger, Labour’s shadow climate change minister told the Guardian. “At a time when millions of families are struggling with their energy bills, it beggars belief that this government will cut the number of people getting help to insulate their homes by as much as 90%, scrapping successful schemes introduced by Labour.”

“The most effective way people can save money on their bills is by improving their home’s energy efficiency, but this government is so out of touch it is making it harder to do,” she said.

Existing insulation schemes subsidise the cost of insulation with, for example, energy company Eon this week offering free loft and cavity wall insulation plus a £100 incentive. The funding comes from a levy of £25 a year on all bills and from government coffers. The green deal, by contrast, offers no subsidy for these measures and instead provides a loan enabling the up-front costs to be paid back using the savings made on heating bills.

However, the new DECC figures show that the take-up of the green deal is expected to be very low. In December, in an unprecedented intervention, the government’s official independent advisers warned in an open letter that the green deal was set to fail, reaching just 2-3m households of the 14m targeted. “The paradox is that the government’s own impact assessment suggests the policy will not deliver its objective,” said David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change. “There is a difference between the rhetoric and their own assessment.”

The government’s plans, currently undergoing a public consultation, do include an Energy company obligation (ECO), funded by a levy on all bills. But as it stands that will only be available to so-called “hard-to-treat” homes, in effect those with no cavity wall and hence needing solid wall insulation. The DECC figures show solid wall insulation rising by 10-fold to 153,000 a year – although the Guardian also reports that the Government is considering that the ECO might be used for some cavity walls.

Meanwhile analysis in Building by Richard Quartermaine at Cyril Sweett of whether measures proposed under the Green Deal would offer a good pay back for housing over a 25 year period. The results show that most improvements including solid wall insulation can meet the golden rule. However the article also concluded that certain measures, namely ground floor insulation and glazing, do not offer a payback within 25 years (when applied as standalone measures) and therefore would benefit from some form of subsidy. “On this note it would be useful if the ECO could be applied to wider measures beyond just the solid wall insulation. This finding is consistent with the message of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). The CCC is concerned that if the ECO focuses on just solid wall insulations areas where arguably more carbon savings are available (ie. insulating lofts and cavity walls) may be neglected.”

In another development, the Federation of Master Builders has put its £5.75m London headquarters up for sale in an attempt to raise funds to help deliver a new five-year business plan, including developing a competent person scheme for the Green Deal.

FMB director of external affairs Brian Berry told Construction News that the organisation had already identified a new site close to its existing 9,576 sq. ft. HQ for which it intends to purchase the freehold.

In addition, the communities department is set to introduce “consequential improvements” in Part L of the Building Regulations when it consults on changes later this month reported Building. This could force homeowners to undertake Green Deal energy improvement measures to their home when they carry out other major works, seen as a key driver of Green Deal uptake.