Energy saving getting cheaper

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has announced such a plethora of new policies in recent years that it can be quite a job just trying to keep up.

Today we add to the mix the Warm Homes, Greener Homes Strategy. At first glance it looks like a good step forward.

One highlight is the commitment to introduce legislation allowing loans to be provided to households to pay up front for energy saving measures (such as insulation or micro-gen renewable technologies like solar) and then for repayments to be made over a period of time out of the money saved off energy bills. When combined with the Feed-In Tariff (which will be introduced in April and will guarantee a rate of income for all energy generated through micro-gen) improving the energy performance of your home is about to become a whole lot more financially attractive.

We know from research (including ippr’s Positive Energy and Consumer Power) that the up-front costs involved in installing energy saving measures is a key barrier preventing their uptake and so this is a welcome announcement. However, it’s fair to say that it is not a particularly new idea. Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats support the introduction of a similar scheme and it is something that we at ippr recommended back in 2007. Nevertheless, it is welcome that it is finally being introduced.

As with much climate change policy the difference between the major parties will be in the detail and the delivery. For example, what messengers and communications will be used to maximise uptake of the scheme? How else will householders be persuaded that installing the measures is worth the hassle? How will people living in fuel poverty who probably won’t benefit from this scheme be helped to improve the energy efficiency of their homes?

With each of the major party leaderships appearing committed to achieving action on climate change there often just isn’t that much to pick between them in terms of policy. As the temperature hots up in the run up to the election (climate change pun intended) what will be more interesting is how the parties relate to the electorate and their memberships on climate change, when levels of climate scepticism have recently increased and it’s just not a priority issue for most.

Reg Platt, Researcher, ippr