New Green Deal insulation plans “would take 100 years”

Lobbyists are claiming it would take 100 years to put insulation into all the UK’s homes under the Government’s new plans for its scheme to boost home energy efficiency measures. […]

Lobbyists are claiming it would take 100 years to put insulation into all the UK’s homes under the Government’s new plans for its scheme to boost home energy efficiency measures.

Today DECC released its updated plans for the Green Deal including a new impact assessment which estimates how many jobs it will create and how many houses will be insulated.

The Association for the Conservation of Energy, a lobbying group which speaks for energy services and insulation firms, is worried the new targets will actually create less jobs and won’t be enough to meet our carbon targets.

Pedro Guertler, Head of Research at ACE told ELN: “They [the Government] say jobs will go up from 26,000 to 60,000 but we struggle to see how this is possible if the number of houses being insulated is going down.

“It would take 100 years to insulate all the solid walls in homes in Britain by the rates they published today.”

The Energy Saving Trust says solid wall insulation could cut home heating costs by 40%. The Government wants all solid wall insulation and efficiency measures to take place by 2030.

Mr Guertler warned the new Green Deal targets could easily result in a quarter less carbon emissions being cut than under earlier plans, which already were less than needed to fall in line with the Climate Change Act’s targets.

It is also unclear whether an extra £200million earmarked for the scheme by the Treasury last year is factored into the new figures, said Mr Guertler.

The ACE would like to see more complementary programmes and a proper strategy to clear up what appears to be a “huge gap in policy”.

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