Catherine Murphy
Question:114. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the estimated cost of doubling the funding available for heating control grants. [54464/23]
View answerTuesday, 12 December 2023
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The installation of fully integrated heating controls is one of the energy efficiency measures supported under the SEAI administered grant schemes. Heating controls are an excellent way to control a household's energy usage and improve comfort. A fixed grant of €700 is available towards the cost of installing heating controls. This is available under all of the part-funded residential retrofit schemes. Heating controls can also be installed as part of a wider retrofit under the fully funded Warmer Homes scheme.
The majority of grants for heating controls are paid out under the Better Energy Homes (BEH) scheme. The BEH scheme provides individual grants for a range of measures, allowing homeowners to take a step-by-step approach to their retrofit. That scheme has a budget of €48.5 million this year.
There is no ring-fenced budget allocation for heating control measures and, with the exception of the Better Energy Homes Scheme, details on the number of installations of heating controls is not routinely collated by SEAI.
Under the Better Energy Homes scheme to end November 2023, 1,037 grants for heating controls were paid out at a cost of just over €726,000. On the basis of this level of grant payments, a doubling of the fixed grant from €700 to €1,400 would have brought to €1,452,000 the amount paid out of the Better Energy Homes scheme to end November 2023 based on the same level of demand.