Green Deal chasing “inbetweeners” for efficiency loans

The Green Deal is chasing the “inbetweeners” for energy efficiency loans according to its boss. Chief Executive Mark Bayley told MPs on parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee the scheme was […]

The Green Deal is chasing the “inbetweeners” for energy efficiency loans according to its boss.

Chief Executive Mark Bayley told MPs on parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee the scheme was good for people in a band between those couldn’t get energy schemes for free and those who have plenty of their own savings and could afford to buy insulation outright.

Disputing criticism the scheme had been a “total failure”, he  said the size of the Green Deal Plan’s loan book had doubled.

Asked by MP Albert Owen whether the loans lack “competitiveness”, the Green Deal boss said: “I certainly don’t agree with that.”

He added: “We are an incredibly useful source of finance… Of course people with savings can do other things… we are there for those who can’t.”

The company got its rate “as low as we can”, said the CEO: “I know a major investment bank tried to put below what we had and couldn’t get below 10%… We’re 8%.”

The “only way to get rate lower would be outright subsidy” which gets into a different debate, Mr Bayley added.

Blaming “barriers stopping its success”, he told MPs a challenge over the next 12 months is getting the “good product” into the hands of consumers.

Later he said public awareness of the Green Deal is at 23% of the public but couldn’t “really address specifics” of whether that was all positive or not.

Around 15 months after the scheme launched in March 2014, only 2,000 households had or we in the process of getting installations. The company aims to have 1.5 million homes kitted out by 2020.

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