Each winter reminds us how hard it can be for some to heat their homes. Leaky, inefficient homes only exasperate this problem. The government is tackling that issue through various schemes and incentives. On the 18th of January, they dedicated £16 million to upgrading the energy efficiency of our domestic homes to keep families warm this winter.
This funding falls under the Green Home Finance Accelerator programme, which is designed to support new ways to update the efficiency of the UK’s domestic housing stock. The £16 million is being spread amongst various projects in motion right now. All of these projects share one common goal – to make energy upgrades more accessible to families across the country.
Sunsave’s Electric Roof Project
The government has assigned £1.9 million to Sunsave for their ‘Electric Roof Project’. This project allows people to pay for solar panels on a subscription basis, rather than paying the whole cost upfront. Each month, they will pay a certain amount to cover installation, monitoring and maintenance. All the while they will benefit from the energy gathered by the panels. Additionally, the homeowner will gain access to ‘Smart Tariffs’ which offer them different electricity rates depending on the time of day. Thus, the smart meter helps the household to save more.
E.ON’s Energy As A Service
Furthermore, E.ON’s ‘Energy as a Service’ will receive a £1 million boost to go towards their one-stop-shop for energy advice. This service educates homeowners about how to run their homes most efficiently, to save on their energy bills each month. Behavioural changes can make a big difference with or without the advantage of physical retrofit upgrades. It also offers funding for up to 350 households to install low-carbon technology. This could include heat pumps, solar panels, and battery storage.
“These innovative projects will allow more families to save money and cut emissions.
We are always looking to test progressive ways to make energy-saving measures more accessible and affordable, allowing people to make their homes greener and warmer.
Lord Callanan, Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance
Other Projects
Additionally, there are other projects which will receive part of the £16 million. These include:
- Perenna, which will receive £888,000 to develop a long-term, fixed-rate ‘green mortgage’ incentivising customers to make their homes more energy efficient by offering a reduced mortgage rate
- Chameleon Technology’s HTC-Up project, which will receive £795,000 to provide domestic homeowners and landlords bespoke green loans and cashback rewards, to help make their properties more energy efficient
- Scroll Finance Limited’s Glocers Project, which will receive £1.5 million to pilot a project that uses equity in a home to provide a loan that funds the upfront costs of installing energy saving measures in a flexible and affordable way
This is yet another example of money being poured into the energy industry. The focus of schemes such as these lies firmly on the UK’s domestic houses. The authorities are calling for retrofit on an enormous scale. There’s no doubt that it is a huge project to undertake.
Your Career In Energy
You can be part of this retrofit movement. Energy Trust has been training energy professionals for over a decade now, and we are very proud of the retrofit courses we offer. Each course has been carefully designed to equip our learners with all the knowledge they need to succeed in the energy industry. If you are looking to expand your skills, please consider training with Energy Trust.
It is a great time to get involved. Energy Trust has successfully secured funding through the Home Decarbonisation Skills Training Competition — a government funding programme aimed at training individuals in the energy efficiency and retrofit industry. This means that you can receive a substantial discount on many of our qualifications over the next few months.
