The Green Deal: How Far Has Energy Efficiency Come?
Source: Trillion Fund / Words: Rebecca Cooke
This morning, representatives from the UK energy industry met at the Westminster Energy, Environment and Transport (WEET) Forum to review the successes and the pitfalls of one of the government's attempts to plug the gaping holes in the energy efficiency sector: the green deal.
Since its inception in 2010 the green deal has been hailed as one of the coalition government's steps towards affirmative action to tackle energy efficiency, fuel poverty and improve the UK's housing stock. Four years on and it seems that there is nigh on ubiquitous consensus that the policy framework has not delivered on any of these counts.
Last week, The Guardian published a bleak report on just how far the effects of the green deal had come in repairing the damage caused to consumer's finances by lack of energy efficiency. It showed that since February the scheme had signed just 33 new contracts across Britain to take advantage of the new Green Deal Finance plan to retrofit homes with energy efficiency measures. A grossly disappointing figure considering the scheme was initially started with the view to improve 14 million homes across the country.
The sentiment was echoed in the WEET forum today as energy industry representatives said that the green deal had a long way to go if was ever to make a difference to Britain's energy efficiency sector.
Andrew Warren, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy commented on the5 million UK households battling with fuel poverty. He said: “In 2010 it was the aspiration of all three of the leading political parties to improve 14 million households energy efficiency. In 2000, the government pledged that by 2016 fuel poverty in the UK would have been abolished. I am still waiting to see the measures that need to be taken to see that happen. Today, there are more homes in fuel poverty than there were at the beginning of the century.”
He highlighted a report from the Department of Energy and Climate Change which showed fuel bills would continue to rise in order to cover the £140 billion being spent on infrastructures to combat climate change. Currently around 9 per cent of UK consumer's energy bill is used to finance infrastructure. According to new statistics this will rise to 26 per cent by 2020 if measures to improve energy efficiency are not improved drastically are not taken.
He added: “The fundamental way in which this can be tackled is by improving thermal energy efficiency.”
Despite the fact that the green deal has not yet made marked progress with its' goal of improving the energy efficiency of 14 million household nationally, David Thomas, deputy director of the Green Deal Demand said that since the scheme began four years ago it has benefitted half a million households and has signed 1,760 contracts worth £2.6 million. However the Green Deal Finance has had a dismally slow uptake in part, as energy secretary Ed Davey has said, due to the application process being 'clunky and complex.'
Mr Thomas said that future plans for the green deal would centre around 'increasing uptake of the scheme and helping customers gain access to local community energy offers to drive competition in the market.'
Yet fuel poverty and the lack of provisions to combat it are still plaguing the UK's energy industry. The gravitas of the situation was summarised by Derek Lickorish, the chair of the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group who said: 'It's people's lives that are being affected. Fuel poverty leads to additional winter deaths and higher rates of depression and anxiety for people who cannot heat their homes. The treasury needs to begin to put money from energy bill taxation back into energy efficiency.”
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