Green Deal Home Improvement Fund is going fast

Over £16.5 million worth of vouchers have been issued under the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund to the end of June - three weeks into the scheme. However, the current rates are only guaranteed for the first £50 million and only £120 million has been allocated for the first year.  Also, only two thirds of the applications received have been issued so far. There could be another £10 million or so already in the pipeline which brings us half way to the £50 million point. What will happen then? Well the ECO grant scheme is still chugging along [1] [2].


The average value of vouchers issued so far is just under £6,000 which means almost all of those applications involve solid wall insulation*. The number of vouchers issued is nearly 2,786. Doubtless this is 2,786 happy households. However, during February and March, 19,736 households received solid wall insulation subsidised by the much derided Energy Companies obligation [3]. The rate of installations dropped dramatically between March and April due to proposed changes to the targets but there were another 1,739 in April. The future is not certain as the latest consultation is still being evaluated but the proposal was that it will continue until 2017 [4].


Cumulative number of households getting solid wall insulation through the ECO [3].

Date	Number of households
End of Jan	31854
End of Feb	39080
End of Mar	51590
End of Apr	53329

Also there are other local schemes funded from central goverment such as the Cambridgeshire Solid Wall Insulation Fund. This offers similar terms to the  Green Deal HIF (comparison table here) but if you are having solid wall insulation and you live in Cambridgeshire then using the local scheme leaves more of the HIF for others.

* The Green Deal HIP offers up to £6000 for solid wall insulation, £1000 for a combination of 2 other measures from a menu of 12 and other smaller amounts in particular cases.

[1] Energy Saving Advice Service (ESAS) calls and Green Deal webpage views and Green Deal Home Improvement Fund (GDHIF) application data (www.gov.uk)
[2] £7600 to make your home more energy efficient (www.gov.uk) May 2014
[3] Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation Statistics (www.gov.uk)
[4] The future of the Energy Companies Obligation (blog.decc.gov.uk) 5 Mar 2014