Knauf Insulation is warning that the latest Green Deal statistics, released today by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), show that it will take more than 200 years to reach the Government’s target of tackling 14 million homes, if the current rate of assessment continues.
The figures reveal that only 2,031 more Green Deal assessments took place in April than in March, indicating that the level of interest is already starting to plateau.
John Sinfield, Managing Director of Knauf Insulation, Northern Europe commented: “These figures confirm the industry’s worst fears – that the Green Deal has been strangled at birth by the complete lack of any real incentive to encourage uptake amongst householders.
"If this rate of activity evens out at 10,000 assessments a month it will take 116 years to reach the original DECC aspiration of tackling 14 million homes – and that assumes an optimistic 100 per cent conversion rate from assessment to Green Deal. At a more realistic rate of 50 per cent it will take 232 years to achieve this goal.
“Therefore, our argument to Government is that a significant ‘demand driver’ is urgently needed in order to create momentum amongst householders. The Government claims that the Green Deal is a market driven mechanism yet as currently designed it will only appeal to a small subset of the population. The Green Deal must be made attractive to ALL householders if it is to stand any chance of success. Cashback should be broadened from just Green Deal to all boiler and insulation retrofits.
“This would also allow the highly developed supply chain built around these CERT driven measures to adjust to the new world. Otherwise, much of this ‘shovel ready’ delivery infrastructure will begin to disappear – a process that is already happening, as demonstrated by the 5,000 job losses in the insulation industry to date since the end of CERT.”
Commenting on the publication of the latest Green Deal statistics, Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said: “The Green Deal market is showing healthy signs of growth since its launch at the end of January with 18,816 Green Deal assessments carried out by the end of April. That’s over double the amount of assessments undertaken by the end of March.
“It’s still early days for this long term initiative, but this is a clear sign of growing interest from consumers, with people keen to improve the efficiency of their homes to make them warmer and help save money on bills.
“As the number of householders getting on board continues to rise, the number of businesses offering Green Deal services is also building momentum. At the end of April there were 55 authorised Green Deal providers, 1,274 individuals registered to carry out assessments and 942 organisations signed up to carry out installations. It’s fantastic to see householders and businesses cottoning on to the benefits and rising to the challenge.”
