The Great British Refurb has been busily telling Government to help consumers make sustainable refurbishment affordable. We have used lots of different methods to get our messages across from petitions to No 10 Downing Street to public forms with political leaders to Parliamentary events with leading MPs. And our message is getting through.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change recently asked the Energy Saving Trust to pilot several innovative finance plans to cover the upfront costs of more expensive, energy efficiency and microgeneration measures. Many of us are already doing the easy stuff like cavity wall insulation, loft top up and low energy lighting. It’s the more expensive measures which are out of reach for a lot of us.

This new pilot scheme dubbed the Home Energy Pay As You Save project looks at ways to help us pay for whole-house energy retrofits, based on spreading the cost over a long period of time and by offsetting the costs against the savings.

These are the types of programmes the Great British Refurb are advocating Government to urgently support. If the Home Energy Pay As You Save programme is successful it could help reduce one of the biggest barriers stopping many of us from taking on the more expensive energy efficiency measures.
The pilot programme will test consumers interest in the Pay As You Save style of finance packages and will involve a host of partners including local authorities,  landlords, energy suppliers, other project partners.

Around 400 homes will take part in the Pilot which will test 4 financial models and run from October 2009 to March 2011. Follow our Great British Refurb blog for updates on the progress of the pilots and other innovative approaches to completing your own home refurbishment.