The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has confirmed that the solid wall insulation fund of £24 million under the second release of the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund (GDHIF) has been fully allocated.
The full allocation of funds occurred less than 48 hours after the scheme went live. The government claims that the distributed funds will create “a pipeline of work for the industry to carry out over the coming months”.
However, the industry has reacted furiously to the stop-start nature of the support. The full allocation of the funds follows the abrupt closure of the first wave of GDHIF which saw around £60 million worth of vouchers applied for in two days.
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The government has advised any parties that missed out the funding tranche to wait for details of further funding releases which will be released quarterly, starting from February 2015. However, the department has included the following disclaimer which may concern potential applicants: “DECC may vary the terms of the scheme (including the incentive rates) or suspend or close the scheme, with immediate effect, without notice and at any time.”
Commenting on the scheme, energy and climate change minister Amber Rudd said: “The Green Deal Home Improvement Fund has been incredibly popular – it’s helping thousands of people have warmer homes and more control of their energy bills. Although the fund for solid wall insulation is fully allocated, there’s still money available now for a range of other measures and another release of funding is expected in February.”
The second pot of funding under the second wave of GDHIF is £6 million made available for domestic customers to install two measures from a list of home improvements under the scheme.
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