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One in four United Kingdom homes to get eco-makeover
Teams will provide insulation and
provide advice on suitable micro-generation technologies
BusinessGreen 09 February 9,
2009
More than one in four homes in the UK will be offered an
environmental makeover in an effort by the Department of Energy and Climate
Change to cut a third of greenhouse gas emissions from households by 2020.
Some seven United Kingdom million homes will receive the
voluntary makeover, which will include insulations and free advice on
suitable small-scale electricity generation technologies.
The scheme will be partly funded by nearly £1bn in
household energy-saving initiatives from UK energy firms, which prime
minister Gordon Brown announced last year in response to calls for a
windfall tax on the "Big Six" power companies.
A report by Oxford University's Environmental Change
Institute in 2007 found that only four out of every 1,000 homes had any
low-and-zero carbon technologies. The report also warned that emissions from
the sector would rise by 23 per cent by the middle of the century under a
business as usual scenario.
Improving building energy efficiency is widely recognised
as one of the most cost-effective means of cutting carbon emissions, while
also allowing households and businesses to cut energy bills
However, Lord Turner's recent
Climate
Change Committee report on moving to a low-carbon economy warned many
home insulation projects "will not be pursued even at a high carbon price,
because of the hassle involved in deciding which particular solution to
pursue, in appointing suppliers and supervising work".
It concluded: "As a result, non-price policy
interventions can in many instances be more effective than carbon prices."
The government now looks set to follow this advice with
the development of mandatory rollout schemes.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate
Change said more details on the plans would be announced by energy and
climate secretary Ed Miliband on Thursday.
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