Warm Homes Greener Homes Strategy Announced

More details about the government’s attempt to cut emissions from UK homes by 29% in the next 10 years has recently been announced.

The tough challenges set by the UK government on cutting emissions and having more renewable energy being used as a percentage of overall energy and now the new warm homes greener homes strategy provides us with some more detail especially about green loans for households so they can invest in energy saving devices and technologies.

Previously the new feed in tariffs were announced that allows home owners to earn money from such items as solar panels so they can sell electric energy back to the national grid. Although the terms are still being developed initially the pay back on such investments is minimal and experts believe that the terms may get scaled back as the year progress.

More Jobs in the Green Home Industry

As eco upgrades to homes progress more and more people will be employed in this industry and Ed Miliband minister in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate change estimates that soon up to 65,000 new jobs will be created to provide more installation and installed solid wall insulation. Initial estimates for this suggest that an average home owner could save up to £380 per year in energy bills and their overall strategy is to make homes more comfortable and warmer and cheaper to run.

The Greener Homes Strategy

The overall greener homes strategy is to have insulation installed and the have 6 million homes insulated by 2011, the have all practical lofts insulated and cavity walls insulated by 2015 and to have offered up to 7 million homes eco upgrades by the end of 2020 – also by this time all homes should have smart meters installed (smart meters are automatic meters whereby the information is sent directly to the energy company so that you can see instantly how much electricity your home is using and monitor this either via the energy company’s website or use new software to see at a glance via your home computer). Smart meters also mean the end to estimated bills and you’ll never have to have your meter manually read again (some jobs will obviously be lost with this change).

New Pay as You Save Green Loans

As part of this initiative the government wants homeowners in the UK to invest in green technologies to be able to not only sell electricity back to the national grid but invest in products that will keep their homes warm. A survey undertaken as part of the warm homes initiative looked at why people didn’t invest in cavity wall insulation and most came back and said they couldn’t afford it or that they hadn’t thought about it. This last item should reduce as news about these schemes make the  media and more people talk about it and now the financing side will hopefully reduce now the new pay as you save loan scheme gets introduced.

The idea is that people can invest in new eco improvements with no up front costs and perhaps 0% loans are provided much like the carbon trust are doing with businesses. Legislation will be introduced and perhaps most of the loan improvements may be made available from the energy companies themselves and certainly a new partnerships with local councils is also going to be introduced.

Be sure to keep up to date with the initiatives the government is introducing here. Certainly people on lower incomes will benefit the most as they do currently.