New statistics concerning the UK government’s home energy efficiency improvement schemes have revealed that millions of UK households have benefited from support for energy efficiency upgrades.
The UK government currently runs two schemes that support households to add energy-saving retrofits to their homes. The first, the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), is funded by the UK’s largest energy suppliers and provides eligible households with energy saving upgrades including solid wall, cavity wall, and loft insulation, as well as double glazing and draught proofing.
The second scheme, the Green Deal, is funded by the government itself, and provides affordable finance packages to those seeking to install measures such as the aforementioned insulation, double glazing, and draught-proofing, as well as finance towards renewable energy generation such as solar panels or heat pumps.
The latest statistics show that around four million energy efficiency measures have been installed in around 2.5 million homes under the ECO up to the end of July 2024, while the much newer Green Deal has seen the creation of 13,867 financial packages for energy efficiency upgrades. Of these, 4,893 plans have been fully paid off, while 8,974 plans are considered as “live”, meaning all planned measures have been installed.
New, more efficient heating controls account for a significant portion of the upgrades installed; 48% of all measures installed under ECO have been heating controls.
These measures have a significant impact on the UK’s decarbonisation goals, as well as the energy bills of homeowners; the government estimates that the measures installed thus far will save UK households over 224Twh of energy over their operational lifespan.
The number of households taking part in the scheme varies significantly by region, with the north of England and Scotland seeing some of the highest uptake rates per 1,000 households. The North West of England has seen 714,786 ECO measures installed since the scheme was launched in 2013, a rate of 229.1 measures per 1,000 households, marking around one fifth of total installs. Meanwhile, Scotland has an average install rate of 184 per 1,000 households, with its total installation numbers making up 11% of the overall total. Around 82% of the installed upgrades were made in homes that use gas as their main fuel type.
Under the new Flexible Eligibility measures, which allow local authorities to decide which households are eligible for what measures, around 199,100 measures have been installed. Government estimates suggest that over the lifetime of the installed tech, this could collectively save householders £1.6 billion off their energy bills.
The retrofit challenge
The UK’s ageing housing stock presents a significant problem with installing energy efficiency upgrades. The UK has the oldest building stock in Europe, with 5.9 million buildings over a century old and another 4.3 million built over 80 years ago.
Alongside schemes like the Green Deal and ECO, the government is working to decarbonise its public buildings, having recently allocated £557 million to public projects seeking to cut emissions.
A 2023 report by Neos Networks noted that CO2 emissions from public buildings in the UK need to be reduced five times faster than the current pace to meet the country’s net zero goals, with 91% of public buildings needing upgrades in the next seven years.
For new-build housing, much loftier targets are being set; instead of focusing on energy efficiency, Octopus Energy is working with housing companies to build 100,000 “Zero Bills” homes by 2030.
These homes will be fitted with heat pumps, battery energy storage systems and solar panels. As such, Octopus Energy promises the future residents of these homes that they will not pay energy bills for at least five years as the homes generate more energy than they consume.
