GGF calls for 'meaningful' incentives and review of energy eficiency schemes
The Glass and Glazing Federation (GGF) has called for a review and overhaul of the Governments energy efficient schemes following the latest Green Deal and ECO (Energy Company Obligation) statistics which show only 64 windows have been installed (under Green Deal) since the scheme started in 2013.
On the 19th February, the latest Green Deal and ECO statistics up to the end of January 2014 were released. The figures show slight increase on the previous statistics released in January after lower than expected figures in the December-November release. The scheme still has not taken off as quickly as originally promised by former Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Minister Greg Barker, and only just this last week, the Green Deal finally passed its 10,000 plan milestone with over 10,000 UK households having either completed energy efficiency upgrades under the Green Deal financing scheme or in the process of doing so.
The key points of note from the latest statistics include:
- A provisional 1,337,000 measures were installed in around 1,086,000 properties through ECO, Cashback, Green Deal and the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund to the end of December 2014, up from 1,286,000 measures to the end of November. The large majority of installed measures (97%) were delivered through ECO.
- GD Assessments – 473,666 were lodged up to the end of December 2014. The 26,357 GD Assessments in January was 6% higher than the number in December (24,857).
- Green Deal Plans – 9,583 households had Green Deal Plans in progress at the end of January 2015, up from 8,348 at the end of December 2014. Of these, 2,525 Plans were ‘new’ (quote accepted), another 1,752 were ‘pending’ (Plan signed) and 5,306 were ‘live’ (all measures installed).
- Cashback vouchers - As the Cashback payment process closed at the end of October 2014 there will be no further redemptions under the standard Cashback process. At the end of the scheme, 14,743 vouchers had been paid following the installation of 15,696 measures. Overall, including additional measures installed through the Cashback exception process, around £16.3 million has been paid and the majority have been for boiler replacements.
- ECO measures - provisional figures show that 1,296,441 measures had been installed to the end of December 2014, 49,005 installed in December, which was 19% lower than the 60,253 installed in November. This continues the downward trend in measures installed each month since March 2014, although energy companies have also started delivering measures eligible under the ECO amendment order with around 150,000 additional installations reported between April and September.
Of all ECO measures installed to date, 38% were for cavity wall insulation, 22% were for boiler upgrades and 27% were for loft insulation.
On windows specifically:
- Only 21 window installations had taken place using Green Deal Finance up to December 2014.
- 64 windows were installed with Cashback up to the end of December 2014 in England and Wales
- The number of windows installed using ECO funding included:
- 1,011 via the Carbon Saving Target element of ECO
- 1,426 via the Carbon Saving Community element of ECO
- 1 via the Affordable Warmth element of ECO
- These represent 0.2% of the measures installed via ECO funding
Nigel Rees, GGF Group Chief Executive commented, “The figures continue to show that Green Deal and ECO are simply not appealing to homeowners and subsequently the replacement domestic glazing industry. After the General Election in May, we hope that, regardless of which party is in Government, that these energy efficiency schemes will be reviewed and rejuvenated with meaningful incentives for homeowners to install energy efficient windows.”
The latest statistics can be read in full here.
