GBRC

The premise of our televised online debate between the Energy Minister Greg Barker, Grand Designs front man Kevin McCloud and several leading industry representatives was "The Green Deal: One Year and counting".

Next week, on 9 November at 2.30pm, Kevin McCloud and Paul King (UK-GBC chief executive), will be joined by Greg Barker – Minister of State for energy and climate change – for  a live “webinar” in which they will be dissecting the Green Deal at your dictat.

Next year – after the UK Energy Bill is granted Royal Assent– there should be a finance mechanism by which homeowners could get energy efficiency measures – like insulation and heating systems – installed in their homes without paying any upfront costs. They will make repayments through the resultant savings to their energy bill savings. This mechanism is called Pay as You Save (PAYS) and is the central tenet of the Green Deal.

Just before today's Report Stage of the Energy Bill, it is a good time to look at where we are in the progress towards the Green Deal launching in the Autumn of next year.

On the 30th June MPs spent more than six hours debating energy efficiency issues in the House of Commons and the Green Deal featured heavily as part of the debate.  The full transcript of the debate can be read here but we've put together a summary of the highlights of the debate, relating to low carbon home refurbishment:

I’m feeling quite positive about the coalition and what it could mean for greener homes in the UK.  During the fraught talks on those crucial days post-election as the new coalition was formed, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had plenty of big issues that they disagreed on, not least of all nuclear power.  Despite this, there does seem to be an element of consensus on environmental issues between the parties and they have agreed on policies around a smart grid, renewable energy, electric cars, dropping the third runway at Heathrow and a Green Investment Bank.

This week the Chancellor published the Budget for 2010 which received some pretty mixed reactions. In terms of the green measures, there were a range of announcements including support for the renewables industry, both small and large, some extra cash to help low carbon businesses and green manufacturers, plus some boosts to promote energy efficiency.

For me, the most interesting announcements were around a so-called ‘Green Investment Bank’.  Here at UK-GBC we were very encouraged to hear Government restate their commitment to creating a £2billion Green Investment Bank with a mandate to invest in low-carbon infrastructure.  Essentially Government is proposing that they will invest £1billion themselves which will be matched by the private sector; together the cash will be used to invest in major low-carbon infrastructure projects, particularly in the transport and large renewable energy sectors and should – crucially – be used to leverage further private sector money on a much larger scale. Leveraging capital for hugely complex low-carbon infrastructure is crucial for the renewable future of the UK but we believe the GIB has the potential to bring about a low carbon revolution for homeowners as well.