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The government鈥檚 proposed cuts to the Energy Companies Obligation will wipe 拢245m more from the key retrofit scheme than previously predicted, analysis by the Association for the Conservation of Energy has found.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced plans to cut the Energy Companies Obligation (ECO) in December 2013 after pressure from energy companies, who blamed the scheme for the rising cost of energy bills.

The government鈥檚 consultation on the cuts, published in March, estimated they would wipe 拢900m off the value of the scheme, leading to 14,000 fewer jobs being created in the energy efficiency sector over the next three years.

But in its response to the government鈥檚 consultation, which closes today, the Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE) estimated the total cut to the scheme is actually 拢1.15bn.

ACE said it had come to this conclusion because the latest data on carbon reduction delivery from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) - which was not available when the consultation was published 鈥� indicated that around 拢245m of retrofit work would no longer need to be undertaken to meet the scheme鈥檚 revised targets.

When taken together with the 拢900m in cuts to the scheme already identified by the government, this means ECO is worth 拢1.15bn less to the industry than it was when the overhaul was first announced in December.

Under the government鈥檚 plans energy companies that exceeded their targets under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Obligation (CERO) part of the scheme would get 1.75 times the credit for the carbon reductions they delivered over and above their targets to the end of March.

The mechanism was introduced to prevent an immediate drop off in energy efficiency work between the announcement of the cuts plan and the end of March.

However, ACE鈥檚 analysis, found that once the uplifts were taken into account energy firms would have delivered 9.2MTCO₂ savings to the end of March, compared with just 6.MTCO₂ under DECC鈥檚 estimate. It said this 2.9 MTCO₂ that would not need to be delivered under the plans equated to 拢245m of work for the construction industry.

It added that when carbon reduction from changes to what energy firms could 鈥渃arry over鈥� from previous energy efficiency schemes was included that 鈥渧ery little of the original 2015 CERO target of 20.9 MtCO₂ remains to be delivered: just 6%鈥�.

It added: 鈥淔ollowing next to no delivery to March 2015, to deliver CERO post-March 2015, delivery would have to be ramped up again five-fold.鈥�

Andrew Warren, director of ACE, said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 another example of the way in which the big energy companies run policy to their commercial advantage.鈥�

A spokesperson for DECC said it would respond the consultation 鈥渋n due course鈥�.