Delivery of the Green Deal will be hampered by the need to “multi-skill” assessors and installers, according to Graham Weller, head of Green Deal at British Gas.
An Energy & Utility Skills conference last week heard that the programme would offer up to 40 different measures. Weller warned: “There is huge uncertainty over the level of demand, or which of the 40 measures will be most common.”
He also said that utilities’ software to manage Green Deal assessments had been delayed, and would not be ready until the end of November.
Meanwhile, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) has said it will give Green Deal early adopters “cashback” payments if they install any of a range of measures including insulation, new boilers or heating systems, and draught-proofing. The payments, for people taking out loans from 28 January, range from £70 for better heating controls to £650 for solid wall insulation.
Decc said it had £125 million available in total – but only £40 million was guaranteed at the initial cashback rates.