Energy upgrades for poor households must double to tackle backlog

Upgrades completed for households in energy poverty will have to more than double under a Government plan to tackle a backlog in the scheme and keep up with retrofit targets.

The Warmer Homes Scheme, which provides 100 per cent funding for energy works to households experiencing fuel poverty, has a backlog of 7,070 applications, which has grown in recent months due to the impact of Covid-19.

Ministers were told in an update on Tuesday that the current monthly output – the number of projects being completed – under the scheme is about 180. But the aim is to clear the backlog by the middle of next year, necessitating an increase to some 400 clearances per month.

Many of the works undertaken under the scheme are not the more extensive “deep” retrofit required to bring the homes up to B2 standard in the State’s energy rating system – although the average spend per project has been increasing in recent years as more extensive works are undertaken, now coming in at about €17,000.

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The backlog in the scheme means applicants can expect to wait 26 months.

A total of 4,800 free upgrades are expected this year under the warmer homes scheme, at a cost of €109 million. This has grown rapidly, from just €15 million in 2015.

The Government’s new flagship scheme – which is targeted at households who can afford to fund the non-grant portion of their retrofit, either through borrowing or savings – is expected to deliver about 2,000 deep retrofit projects this year, which entails bringing them to B2 standard. Alongside this, €85 million is being spent on local authority homes by the Department of Housing to bring 2,400 up to B2 standard.

Evictions and retrofitting

The Coalition believes another 2,600 can be delivered under the existing Better Energy Homes scheme, which will have the grants on which it signs off increased in line with those available under the new scheme. The Government is aiming to deliver 8,600 deep retrofits this year, a level which will have to increase to 75,000 per year towards the second half of the decade to stand a chance of hitting the target of 500,000 homes – or 30 per cent of all houses in the country.

It comes as Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan said that landlords will be monitored to ensure tenants are not evicted on the pretext of retrofitting.

"This has to be regulated \[the retrofitting scheme] so that landlords don't use it this way," he told RTÉ radio's Today with Claire Byrne show.

The situation will be “constantly monitored” to ensure landlords are not using the scheme to “in effect” evict tenants, he said.

Mr Ryan also said that the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland website had been overwhelmed overnight since the retrofit grant scheme had been announced. The public are interested. “People want to do the right thing.”