The deep retrofit pilot scheme, operated by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland on behalf of my Department, aims to help us understand how best we can persuade people to invest in the deep retrofit of their homes and what solutions we need to put in place to make it easy for them to do so.
To be eligible for support a home must be upgraded to at least an A3 standard on the Building Energy Rating scale and upgrade their heating system to a renewable energy alternative. Meeting this specification will be challenging but the lessons learned will play a crucial role in determining how the State can effectively support homeowners who want to upgrade their homes to this standard on a wider basis.
Undertaking a retrofit on this scale is a complex, demanding task and householders without any background or experience in energy issues would find it extremely difficult to undertake such an upgrade without support. SEAI is not resourced to provide this degree of engagement to individual homeowners. Therefore, requiring a counter-agent to co-ordinate and act on behalf of a householder ensures that a source of expert support and advice on deep retrofit is available to them throughout the upgrade process. As the Deep Retrofit scheme develops and as undertaking these deep retrofits becomes more commonplace it may be that the need for this advice and support requirement is lessened and it may be appropriate to widen the eligibility to include individual homeowners. This matter will be kept under review by my Department and SEAI.
With regard to the rate of subvention, I believe that the current rates, 50% for homeowners and 95% for those in energy poverty, are appropriate. This rate of subvention is considerably higher than the average grant paid under the Better Energy Homes scheme and reflects the reality that the scheme is trying to build and develop a market for deep retrofit in Ireland. However, increasing the average support level above these levels would push it into a rate that is not sustainable in the long run, which in turn introduces regulatory uncertainty for scheme co-ordinators and contractors and would not represent good value for money for the taxpayers who are funding the scheme.
€5 million has been allocated to the scheme for 2017. It is my intention that the deep retrofit scheme will run for several years and will test a variety of new and innovative ways of promoting deeper retrofits. These learnings will then be incorporated into the design of future nationwide support schemes. The budget for the programme will be reviewed by my Department on an annual basis and will reflect the anticipated level of demand for the scheme and the resources available to support energy efficiency support schemes generally. As I noted in my speech to the recent SEAI conference on deep retrofit, the future of this scheme is in the hands of counter-party's, be they Local Authorities, community groups or private ventures. I have made funds available for the scheme, the SEAI has published the scheme’s principles and now we need to persuade homeowners to make the commitment to undertake deep retrofits.
