The forthcoming ECO+ has been renamed the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS).
It is a supplier obligation, which sits alongside schemes such as ECO4 and ECO Flex, that is being developed by the government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to deliver energy efficiency upgrades in homes.
It is set to launch summer 2023 and will run until 2026, and will target around 300,000 homes.
GBIS will be aimed at the worst performing properties and will include a ‘general eligibility group’, covering homes in the lower council tax bands, with an EPC of D and below. Under the scheme, suppliers may offer to install a single retrofit insulation measure with the cost partially or fully subsidised.
DESNZ commissioned the Behavioural Practice at Kantar Public UK to carry out research to understand the extent to which owner-occupiers are willing to co-fund the installation of retrofit measures in their home. It found that all levels of subsidy were associated with an increase in the likelihood of sample members choosing to install an energy efficiency upgrade at home. The larger the subsidy, the greater the effect on the likelihood of uptake was.
Responding to the news and the wider government plans, Julie Hirigoyen, Chief Executive at UKGBC, said:
The government has doubled down on new clean energy generation, a positive stimulus at this febrile moment for energy security. But it has missed an opportunity by failing to publish a comprehensive national plan to curb the staggering levels of energy waste from our homes and buildings. Without this, we’re trapped into unsustainable demand for heat and electricity, making it extraordinarily difficult to see how we’ll pay our bills or hit our climate goals.
Initiatives such as the ECO+ scheme and extension to heat pump support, while welcome, will only reach a fraction of the 27 million homes that need retrofitting. Similarly, reforms to the planning system set out today do not include the net zero test recommended by Chris Skidmore MP.
As our climate emergency intensifies, the government should be leading from the front by seizing the opportunities of a nationwide retrofit plan that would deliver £56 billion to the UK’s green economy, slash energy bills to save households £8bn every year and create 500,000 skilled jobs in a decade.
We hope that the government makes use of the opportunities to get on track offered by the Energy Efficiency Taskforce and amendments to the planning system through the Levelling Up Bill.
