黑洞社区

The government has announced a 拢19m boost for the Green Deal as it awarded funding for six community based retrofit programmes.

Speaking at Ecobuild today, energy minister Greg Barker said the government had awarded the funding to Cambridgeshire, Ashfield, Suffolk, Peterborough, Haringey and Bracknell Forest councils to embark on local Green Deal schemes.

He said local 鈥渟treet-by-street鈥� delivery schemes were a 鈥渒ey driver of delivery鈥� of the Green Deal

Barker added that the Green Deal market was 鈥渧iable鈥� and 鈥渁mbitious鈥�.

However, he admitted that the policy was 鈥渧ery much a work in progress鈥�.

He said: 鈥淚 know a lot of people have been sceptical about the Green Deal and it鈥檚 certainly very much a work in progress but it has come a long way since it launched last year.

鈥淭here have been over 100,000 assessments and over 80% of those [households] are taking action to install measures.鈥�

He added that the government would unveil further details on the stamp duty rebate it announced in the autumn statement last year, which would see homeowners that improved the energy efficiency of their new home repaid a portion of their stamp duty, in 鈥渢he coming weeks鈥�.

He added: 鈥淰ery shortly the Green Deal will receive a further boost, which is the launch of the launch of the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive this spring.

鈥淭he challenge of decarbonising heat provides an opportunity for the domestic market where 100,000 boilers every year are replaced.鈥�

He said the scheme 鈥渄ovetailed neatly鈥� with the Green Deal to encourage action on energy efficiency at the same time as improving a home鈥檚 heating system.