Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 February 2022
142. Deputy Brian Stanley asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the amount of funding provided for the aggregated housing upgrade scheme; the amount spent to date; the progress to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9661/22]
View answerThe Government has recently approved a package of improved supports as part of the delivery of Ireland’s residential retrofit programme. These measures are aimed at making it easier and more affordable for homeowners to undertake home energy upgrades, for warmer, healthier and more comfortable homes, with lower energy bills and emissions.
In this regard, the new National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme will offer increased grant levels of up to 50% of the cost of a typical B2 home energy upgrade with a heat pump (up from the current level of 30-35%).
The total capital funding cost for the National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme is €97 million with a €40 million allocation in 2022 and €57 million in 2023. This is expected to deliver 2,000 deep energy retrofits, to B2 level with a heat pump, in 2022 and an additional 3,000 in 2023.
A key feature is the new one stop shop model, that is suitable to bringing together groups of homes for aggregated projects thereby creating efficiencies in delivery and fostering new innovation in processes and technologies.
The Community Energy Grant Scheme also continues to make grant funding available for community-based partnerships to improve the energy efficiency of the building stock in their area. The Scheme is designed to support cross-sectoral, partnership approaches that deliver energy savings to a range of building types including public, commercial and community buildings but with a particular focus on using the projects to deliver home retrofits.
The total budget for the Community Energy Grant scheme will be €43 million in 2022, of which approximately €15 million will relate to home retrofits. The new grant rates announced under the National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme will also be available under the Community Energy Grant scheme for homeowners wishing to undertake their energy upgrades as part of a community project
Registration for companies wishing to apply to be a one stop shop is now open. I expect the first one stop shops to be registered within the coming weeks. Homeowners can then make applications for upgrades. The call for projects under the Community Energy Grant scheme will be launched shortly.
