INDUSTRY COMMENT
Martyn Bridges, Director of Technical Communicaon and Product Management at Worcester Bosch discusses the Green Home Grant scheme and whether it has the potenal to be successful
Householders can claim up to £5k of funding for a number of eligible improvements whilst low income householders can claim up to £10k. The funding is to a maximum of either £5k or £10k and will provide up to 2/3rds of the installed improvement or measure with the householder providing the other 1/3rd. This sounds quite promising, particularly as the scheme is broken into two levels of carbon reducing measures, primary and secondary. With primary measures comprising of insulation, such as wall, floor and lofts, and low carbon heating that includes heatpumps and solar thermal. It is pleasing to see that if one of the listed primary measures has been installed then a secondary measure would be eligible for “matched“ funding. The secondary measures include smart controls which again will add efficiency savings to the property.
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There are a number of technologies included in the grant, which would make it seem that the Grant could be a success. However, there is one issue… boilers are not included.
An oversight
Although we support any scheme that actively tries to improve the efficiency of UK homes, the fact that upgrading boilers is not included in this grant is an oversight. There is the possibility that the scheme will not be the success that we all hope for and is unlikely to create many new jobs, never mind retain existing ones.
To start with, there is still anything up to 6m non- condensing boilers in operation so upgrading to a high efficiency condensing boiler would have made a significant improvement to these homes. By restricting the scope to the technologies or measures that the Green Home Grant can include, coupled with restricting the amount of installation companies to ones that are TrustMark registered will have a detrimental effect on the success of the scheme.
Also, the grant is mainly limited to £5k per household and on top of that it also is limited to 2/3rds of the cost of the measure with the householder paying the outstanding 1/3rd. So, there may not be enough of a sufficient “trigger point” to encourage a homeowner to take advantage of the scheme.
From a low carbon heating perspective, the grant is only available on air and ground source heatpumps and solar thermal. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy recently estimated the average installation cost of an air to water heatpump to be £10,700.
Therefore the householder will have to pay around £5,700 as a contribution, presuming the house meets the required criteria of having sufficient levels of insulation and in an EPC band of C. A boiler replacement is probably around £2,000-£3,000 and would not require changes to the heating system or the house to accommodate it.
From an installation company perspective, the original announcement stated you have to be either MCS or Trustmark registered. This requires an annual subscription and quite a lot of back office support, something the majority of installers won’t have as they tend to be “one-man bands”. Consequently, it will be the larger companies who benefit from this. Therefore, I cannot see how this would fit the purpose of being a job creation/job retention scheme. There has since then been a change to the requirements and now being just MCS registered seems to be insufficient and you have to be Trustmark registered come what may. One of the requirements of Trustmark is that you must also work to the same procedures and processes on the private work you undertake that doesn’t attract any grant funding. Consequently, this may also make some companies reluctant to join.
There are some positives, however. We have already seen an unexpected increased level of interest in solar thermal since the grant was announced. Many installers have identified that there may be some business potential. Some are looking at jobs where they fit a set of solar panels on the roof and a hot water storage cylinder. This could pre-heat the water going into a combi boiler if it is suitable for it.
So, although boilers, as a fossil fuel burning appliance, are not eligible for the Green Home Grant the solar apparatus to connect it to would be. We may see a rejuvenation for solar thermal but again depends on the size of the house and whether there is space for a hot water cylinder to be fitted.
You have to admire the intentions of the scheme and I’m in full praise for what the Government has tried to do to retain jobs, help businesses and continue to move towards our net zero targets. However, we believe the scheme is too similar to the Green Deal which was scrapped in 2015. It will be interesting to see whether the restriction of technologies and installation companies that can undertake the work will have an effect on the Grant’s success. Especially that the government has set a target of spending the full £2bn by March next year.
arlier in the year, we received the long-awaited details of the Green Homes Grant scheme. this is a £2bn funding to create and retain jobs as well as contribute to our net zero carbon target by 2050.
BSEE All about the Green Home Grant
Read the latest at:
www.bsee.co.uk
BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER OCTOBER 2020 7
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