Energy efficiency installations more than doubled last year compared to 2019, the latest government figures have revealed.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has published its annual report of in-depth statistics on Great Britain’s government-supported energy efficiency schemes, as well as updated estimates of GB insulation levels.
By the end of December 2021 around 3.6 million energy efficiency measures were installed in 2.5 million properties through schemes such as the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), the Green Deal (GD), Green Homes Grant Vouchers (GHGV) and Local Authority Delivery (LAD).
In total around 460,300 measures were installed through these schemes last year, a year-on-year increase of 42% and more than double the number installed in 2019, which only saw ECO and GD measures installed.
Despite these increases, there has been major criticism of the handling of installing energy efficiency measures by successive governments.
Earlier this year the Energy and Climate and Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said the impact of surging gas prices on bills could have been “roughly halved” had energy efficiency improvements kept pace over the past decade and David Cameron’s alleged ‘cut the green crap’ mantra ignored.
BEIS’ report highlights that the ECO scheme accounted for the vast majority of measures delivered in 2021 at 398,200 – an increase of 23% compared to 2020 and 87% of all measures installed last year.
At the end of 2021, an estimated 14.5 million properties had cavity wall insulation (70% of properties with a cavity wall), 16.8 million had loft insulation (66% of properties with a loft) and 794,000 had solid wall insulation (9% of properties with solid walls).
Across ECO, almost one fifth of measures were installed in the North West of England, equating to around 77,600 measures.
To date, around 9% of British households have an ECO measure installed. Under the Flexible Eligibility (Flex) mechanism, 81 local authorities had more than 500 measures installed, with Scotland having the highest regional share of Flex measures at around 19%.
In 2021, ECO3 measure delivery by nation or region was 346,900 measures in England, equivalent to 87% of installations, 36,200 in Scotland and 15,100 measures (4%) in Wales.
Elsewhere the report states that to the end of 2021 both total delivery and administrative costs of ECO were almost £6 billion. The £724 million delivery costs in 2021 were the highest of ECO3, reflecting the highest annual measure delivery.
The average cost of delivery under ECO3 at the end of 2021 was 24p per pound of lifetime bill savings.