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Government scheme unlikely to substantially improve the energy efficiency of UK homes
Homeowners in England can get up to £5,000 in vouchers to make their properties more energy efficient, which could help pay for insulation and double glazing.
The scheme, which was first announced in July, is intended to help people save on gas and electricity bills and cut carbon emissions, with the Government pledging to get all homes to an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of Band C by 2030.
To gain the grants, which cover two-thirds of the cost of insulation or installing low-carbon heating, householders have to get quotes from contractors who are TrustMark registered and listed on the official Simple Energy Advice (SEA) website.
Dr David Glew and his team in the Leeds Sustainability Institute (LSI) at LBU have found the scheme is too small and unfocussed to make any meaningful impact on national carbon or fuel poverty targets.
The LSI analysed how much the voucher scheme could actually improve UK homes, and if it would be significant enough to help the Government achieve its policy targets.
They undertook work using the Government’s retrofit energy performance tool (RdSAP) to estimate this for an average three-bed semi household, specifically looking at the impact different retrofits, eligible for installation under the voucher scheme, made on fuel bills and energy ratings.
The research found that in homes with poor energy efficiency such as those with grades of D, E and F, the voucher scheme funded retrofits could improve EPC substantially, often up to a C grade.
However, if already energy efficient homes took up the voucher scheme, then little difference to energy efficiency would be made and very few would see an improvement in the EPC grade.
The research shows the scheme could have been much more effective if it was only made available to homes at an EPC rating of D or below, according to Dr Glew.
But the voucher scheme is available to homes in every EPC band and if uptake is assumed to be random throughout housing stock, the grant will have less impact.
Dr Glew, a Reader and Head of Energy Efficiency and Policy in the Leeds Sustainability Institute (LSI), part of the School of the Built Environment Engineering and Computing at LBU, said:
“The voucher scheme is unlikely to substantially improve the energy efficiency of the UK housing stock.
“To maximise “bang for buck” the Government perhaps should have only allowed people living in inefficient (EPC D or lower) homes to access the grant, however, this may have been seen as unfair, and perhaps limited the uptake of the scheme.
“It is plausible, therefore, that this policy design was more focussed on getting the construction industry moving after lockdown, rather than on reducing people’s fuel bills.
“One finding from our research, which was perhaps the most illuminating for the casual observer, was that the £2 billion fund was a mere drop in the ocean.
“The scheme will only stretch to fund retrofits in around half a million homes, and these will not even be to a net zero carbon standard, twice as much may need to be spent per home to achieve zero carbon. Given that there are around 28 million homes in the UK, and that most of which will need some kind of retrofit to meet zero carbon levels, one can begin to see the scale of the problem.
“The Green Homes Grant is therefore simply too small and unfocussed to make any meaningful impact on national carbon and fuel poverty targets, though, of course, it may still be seen as some kind of success, if it does improve the energy efficiency of hundreds of thousands of homes.
“The scheme may not solve all the problems, it may even create a few more, and it is fair to say that there remains a long way to go to crack the nut of domestic energy efficiency policy.”
For more information, view a blog created by Dr Glew.