Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
124. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the number of contractors who are now participating in the one-stop-shop for the roll-out of retrofitting; the estimated aggregate capacity in terms of homes done per month that they can deliver; and his plans to recruit more to the scheme. [40996/22]
View answer125. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications if the contractors under the one-stop-shop arrangement will confine themselves to deep retrofits to achieve the target BER rating; and if not, if they will also deliver service to those doing shallow retrofits. [40997/22]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 124 and 125 together.
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has a number of schemes in place to support homeowners to upgrade their properties including: the Better Energy Homes Scheme; Warmer Homes Scheme; the Community Energy Grant Scheme, the One Stop Shop Development Scheme and the Solar PV Scheme. Since 2000, these schemes have supported over 465,000 homeowners to upgrade their homes to some extent, representing nearly one home in four across the country.
However, the vast majority of these upgrades were limited “shallow” upgrades, typically comprising just one or two measures that are insufficient to bring homes to B2 level. Research and engagement with stakeholders has identified a range of key challenges and barriers specifically related to achieving sufficient homeowner demand for deeper retrofits. These align with the barriers seen in other jurisdictions and include: affordability; lack of awareness and familiarity; perceived hassle and complexity; and, supply chain issues.
In February this year, Government approved the establishment of the National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme which aims to address these challenges through the introduction of a new, highly customer centric, way to undertake home upgrades. SEAI registered One-Stop-Shops will provide an end-to-end service for homeowners. This includes surveying; designing the upgrades; managing the grant process; helping with access to finance; engaging contractors; and quality assurance.
The Scheme offers unprecedented grant levels, increased from circa 30% to 50% of the cost of a typical B2 home energy upgrade with a heat pump.
In addition, and as part of the new measures announced by Government in February, many of the new increased grant rates are also available under the Better Energy Homes Scheme which allows homeowners to take a step-by-step approach or self-manage their project and the Community Energy Grant Scheme wishing to undertake their energy upgrades as part of a community project.
Following Government approval, the SEAI registration portal opened for companies to apply to be a One-Stop-Shop (OSS), building on the preparatory work already undertaken. SEAI are focused on engaging organisations capable of professionally managing all aspects of the OSS service. Therefore, the registration process, for this new service, must be robust.
As part of the registration process, applicant organisations are required to submit a strategic plan to SEAI. These plans will include a minimum 2 year forward focused plan setting out their approach to home energy upgrades and describe its development and growth plans under the new Scheme as well as annual targets for upgrading homes and how each will be achieved, measured and delivered upon. Under the Scheme, the OSSs will enter into contracts with homeowners which will provide that the OSS are required to complete all home energy upgrade associated with a property within 12 months of date of the grant offer.
The SEAI advise that ten OSSs have now been registered, and contact details are available on the SEAI website. SEAI is actively working with other applicant organisations to support them through this registration process and it is anticipated that 20 One Stop Shops will be registered by the end of 2022.
