A tale of two opportunities: one scheme, two different audiences and two different outcomes so far.
The Green Homes Grant (GHG) is split into two. On one side is the voucher scheme providing grants to homeowners to improve their properties. And as we’ve all seen, some of the headlines being generated by the voucher scheme are less than positive.
But on the other side is the Local Authority Delivery (LAD) portion of the GHG scheme which is working very successfully – it is already delivering value for customers, and applications from local authorities are already oversubscribed.
We know only £94 million of grant vouchers have been issued to date, against an original budget of £1.5 billion, that’s 3.7 per cent of the number of households being targeted. But we also know that the £200 million allocated to the LAD scheme this year has already been placed, meaning some authorities are missing out, and not because their schemes are any less important.
The scheme was oversubscribed so we know there’s further demand that could be delivered immediately if funding was made available. This is an important, valuable and attractive proposition to help improve homes and make people’s lives more comfortable – and we should be doing more of it by allocating some (or all?) of the unspent funds from voucher part of the scheme.
There are ‘oven-ready’ projects that could be delivered today and can secure investment in jobs and skills for the future across the country.
To tell a story in numbers, Eon has secured contracts with more than a dozen local authorities, delivering vital energy saving improvements to more than 4,000 homes. Those upgrades will save those households something in the region of £23 million over their lifetime, as well as reducing emissions and making a crucial contribution to the energy transition.
Off the back of this, we are already recruiting for 100 new roles to help manage these projects and we anticipate more jobs will be supported and created by our supply chain partners.
The LAD scheme provides the best approach for energy efficiency schemes, allowing organisations with the technical expertise and supply chain already in place to work directly with Local Authorities who are well placed to identify and encourage households in greater numbers to upgrade their homes.
These schemes are helping customers to live more comfortably and healthier, they are contributing to our fight against the climate crisis and they are helping the UK economy build back better. Next week’s budget can increase funding for LAD schemes from £300 million in 2021/22 to anywhere up to £1.7 billion by rolling over unspent voucher funds. Let’s do more of this.