Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 5 October 2023
163. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications for a breakdown by county on SEAI home energy upgrades support by the Government from January 2023 to June 2023. [43306/23]
View answer164. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications for a breakdown by county on free energy upgrades for low-income households from January 2023 to June 2023. [43307/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 163 and 164 together.
The National Retrofit Plan sets out the Government's approach to achieving the Climate Action Plan targets of upgrading the equivalent of 500,000 homes to a Building Energy Rating (BER) of B2/cost optimal level and installing 400,000 heat pumps to replace older, less efficient heating systems by 2030.
My Department funds a number of schemes to support households to improve the energy efficiency of their properties. SEAI administer these schemes on behalf of my Department. To promote and incentivise the achievement of these targets, in February 2022, the Government launched a package of significantly enhanced supports to make it easier and more affordable for homeowners to undertake home energy upgrades.
Since the introduction of the new measures, demand for the SEAI Schemes has been exceptionally high among homeowners across the entire country. Last year saw 27,200 home energy upgrades. This represented a 79% increase on 2021 levels.
A record €356 million in funding has been allocated to SEAI for residential and community retrofit, including Solar PV, for 2023 to support the delivery of 37,000 home energy upgrades this year.
Figures to end of September 2023 show:
• Over 34,000 home energy upgrades have been supported so far this year (up 112% on September 2022);
• 12,117 BER B2 upgrades completed (up 164% on September 2022);
• 4,169 fully funded energy upgrades for low-income households (up 34% on September 2022);
• 2,737 Heat Pump installations (up 131% on September 2022)
SEAI has published quarterly reports for the first two quarters of 2023 which are available on their website and provide more detail in relation to the retrofits carried out under SEAI schemes in the first half of the year. A breakdown of homes supported by Scheme and by county are provided in the second quarter Report can be found at: www.seai.ie/publications/SEAI-Retrofit-Quarterly-Report-Q2-2023.pdf.
A report for the third quarter will be published in October.
