Bye Bye Green Deal

[Roger Welton]

Government closes down £120m Green Deal scheme as funds runs out | This is Money

Not overly surprising given the very low take up, just pleased I didn't spend a fortune getting acredited for it.

I look forward to the next great thing!

 

[REDSAW]

gvmt to cut subsidies for solar farms and wind farms.......way to go cons/lol

 

[Nostrum]

We binned it off in January when it came up for renewal, very glad we did now! Not surprised and it was the right decision.
Let's hope the industry finds a more suitable way to achieve the targets the Green Deal was supposed to meet!

 

[hammers4spanner]

Yep we can all wait for the next big thing where we have to pay thousands of pounds to fit gas boilers . Still think this green deal was a british gas thing in disguise

 

[Roger Welton]

Don't worry whatever the next scheme they come up with next will be as, if not more heavily weighted in favour of the big boys. This is the same whatever the colour of the rosettes they hide behind.

 

[SimonG]

Read the solar cut this morning. Bio mass looking good. Theres a big eta unit where im working at mo.

 

[hammers4spanner]

Don't know much about biomass however been hearing stories of never installed correct and dodgy buffer tanks ,.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I'll shed no tears for the green deal. A load of over-hyped tosh.

The best thing the government can do is forget all the subsidies, and just put the old age pension up to a decent level to keep the elderly out of fuel poverty, and use the regulatory system to drive energy efficiency.

Changes to building regs has acheived far more for energy efficiency than all the schemes put together. And they fall equally on large and small firms, so there is no built in advantage for the big boys.

 

[Ermintrude]

I hate green steal. But there will be 100 extra muppets on the hunt for work going in with 50p and a bag of sweets prices.

 

[Nostrum]

I'll shed no tears for the green deal. A load of over-hyped tosh.

The best thing the government can do is forget all the subsidies, and just put the old age pension up to a decent level to keep the elderly out of fuel poverty, and use the regulatory system to drive energy efficiency.

Changes to building regs has acheived far more for energy efficiency than all the schemes put together. And they fall equally on large and small firms, so there is no built in advantage for the big boys.

One of the biggest issues is improving the existing housing stock which is something the regulatory system cannot help with, unless they bring in retrospective regulation requirements which would be an impossible task.

I was thinking, could they not offer council tax relief to home improvers looking to make homes more efficient or something along those lines?

The big problem what that though is that landlords would t give a monkeys, although if we can dig ourselves out of a housing crisis, tenants could boycott the landlords with crap properties!

 

[kris]

I'm still trying to understand how the green deal works lol

 

[Ray Stafford]

One of the biggest issues is improving the existing housing stock which is something the regulatory system cannot help with, unless they bring in retrospective regulation requirements which would be an impossible task.

It can over time Sam. By far the most efficient (both financially and in terms of total energy budget) is to upgrade at the point when work is being done anyway - for example because a boiler has reached the end of life. If it were not for the regulatory changes, we would still be replacing G rated boilers on gravity systems. It may take 15 to 20 years, but with a working, 10 year old band D boiler, if you look at the total energy budget of manufacture, distribution, installation etc, its probably better to leave it in for the remaining 5 to 8 years of its life, and upgrade it when it gets beyond economic repair. If, at the same time, you can get 70% to upgrade controls, TRVs etc, then you probably have a more efficient system than the grant/subsidy driven one - most of which get gamed to death by private landlords, the one group of people with an incentive to abuse the system.

The solution to the housing issue is simply to relax planning regs. Its that, and that alone, which suppresses supply and artificially pumps up housing and land asset prices. To avoid a panic, if they announced a staged relaxation over the next 5 to 8 years, then by 2023 we could have taken 20% to 40% off housing prices (less adjusted for inflation of course) by simple market forces. The planning system works very hard to prevent the law of supply and demand from working properly.

 

[missplumb]

where have you been working simon, i know your round near us - not putting my work right???:smilewinkgrin:

 

[Nostrum]

I agree with you on replaceable items such as boilers etc but building fabric isn't something that gets replaced to the extent of requiring to adhere to building regulations. Loft insulation doesn't necessarily get replaced or topped up unless there is the financial incentive to do so.

When you look at the targets we are required to meet in terms of energy efficiency and carbon reduction by 2020, we need to be much more proactive in order to achieve them.

Unfortunately there usually has to be a carrot and stick approach to create any kind of interest.

 

[SimonG]

where have you been working simon, i know your round near us - not putting my work right???:smilewinkgrin:

East Briscoe. It was an EcoEnergy job, but I think you might have been to deliver woodchips. Im just second fixing and some tiling.

 

[SimonG]

Don't know much about biomass however been hearing stories of never installed correct and dodgy buffer tanks ,.

Like the look of this one. Its doing 6 houses and a leisure complex. The bloke says its using more fuel than was predicted but hes over the moon with it.

 

[missplumb]

i think i know where you mean, are all the cottages holiday lets?

 

[SimonG]

i think i know where you mean, are all the cottages holiday lets?

Thats the one.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I agree with you on replaceable items such as boilers etc but building fabric isn't something that gets replaced to the extent of requiring to adhere to building regulations. Loft insulation doesn't necessarily get replaced or topped up unless there is the financial incentive to do so.

Fair point.

When you look at the targets we are required to meet in terms of energy efficiency and carbon reduction by 2020, we need to be much more proactive in order to achieve them.

I appreciate that that this may not be a widely held view, but I believe that in 2020, we will look back at those targets with a wry smile.

 

[newcastle phill]

Not just housing stock....everything and i digress..
We now have stop start cars - we now need traffic lights of equal intelligence instead of dumb timed lights that have no coherence with the flow of traffic

How many times is a row of cars stopped at red lights for there to be nothing on the opposing junction.....now multiply that by a few million movements per week for a few seconds a time x a few cars at a time...

This new road tax structure should be used toward implementing intelligent low carbon traffic control