Is the Green Deal in trouble? Many questions remain about how it could help those in fuel poverty. The new ECO funding scheme means that only 41% of green deal money will be allocated to the fuel poor, and a lack of marketing and public awareness for the deal is a real concern – the DECC has recently cut its communications budget by 95%. However on a simpler level, the problem with the green deal is that the costs involved are unrealistic and unattractive to homeowners.
First of all, a 7.5% interest rate is simply too high. Will customers actually want to take out loans against their property at this rate? Someone taking out a £10,000 loan for efficiency improvements would have to repay at a rate of around £1000 a year for the next 20 years! With figures such as these, it would be better for homeowners to simply extend their mortgages and obtain cheaper finance than the Green Deal can provide.
However, homeowners are not doing this either, in fact many homeowners in fuel poverty, do not have the confidence to take on any debt, even if it is paid for through energy bills. And consumers have lost faith in the government to prevent the energy giants from simply increasing energy prices, counteracting any decline in energy use.
Consumers are much more likely to engage in low cost, less disruptive measures to improve their home energy efficiency; those that offer relatively high savings and shorter payback periods.
Using such measures, for example live, real-time energy monitors, will provide simple bolt on savings at a much more reasonable rate for those in fuel poverty.
Behavioural change regards the wasteful way many of us use energy is a much quicker and cheaper way to stay out of fuel poverty, using energy monitors to better understand the energy use in your property and they act as a highly visible reminder to sustain those energy saving habits. The patented and award winning, easy to understand traffic light display on the Ewgeco live energy monitors do this remarkably well. A recent study by YouGov revealed that a massive 81% of UK adults fail to understand their energy bills and are unaware of the true cost of the energy they use every day and this is reflected in the workplace where most people routinely leave computers on and lights, even when it is bright outside.
The government should be spending more money on education about energy waste and communicating the benefits of the Green Deal, otherwise it is going to be yet another white elephant.
The full article referred to above can be read here http://www.edie.net/blog/view_entry.asp?id=6097399&channel=0