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The scheme, which offers property owners loans, repayable through energy bills, to install energy-saving measures, was launched in January. Six months on and just two homeowners have taken advantage of a loan from the Green Deal Finance Company. The government was hoping for 10,000 by next year.
However, the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) insists that despite the slow start, awareness is growing and take-up will improve.
DECC has today published research that of the 30,000 households that have had assessments done to see whether they are suitable for a Green Deal loan, 47% were getting energy saving measures installed (though not necessarily by using Green Deal finance) and a further 31% said they would ‘definitely or probably’ install at least one measure.
The research showed that awareness of the scheme has doubled over the early months of the scheme, increasing from 10% of households knowing about it in November 2012 (pre-launch) to 22% in May 2013.
In a bid to generate newspaper headlines and interest, DECC last week published research that showed Green Deal-type energy-saving home improvements added up to 38% to property values, and 14% on average.
Energy secretary Ed Davey said: “The Green Deal has only just got underway, but it’s already inspiring consumers to take action to keep their homes warm and bills down. This is great news for the energy efficiency industry as well, because this shows a genuine appetite among householders for more energy efficient homes.”
All this positive-sounding research paves the way for publication on Thursday this week of the first formal DECC statistics on Green Deal take-up. Reports suggest that these might reveal approximately 200 Green Deal loan applications being processed, after software issues caused early delays to applications.
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