Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 February 2022
220. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the way that apartment owners will qualify for the revised home energy upgrade scheme; if applications can be made by multi-units to enhance the efficiency of the process; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8069/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Government has approved a package of supports as part of the delivery 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.
Included in these measures is the establishment of the new National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme, offering 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 new grant rates available for relevant measures under the National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme will also be available under the Better Energy Homes Scheme and the Community Energy Grant Scheme. This will help to ensure that homeowners are clear about which grant scheme is most appropriate to their needs.
The new National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme is a demand-led initiative that introduces a new way to undertake home energy upgrades with One-Stop-Shops providing an end-to-end service for homeowners. This includes surveying the home; designing the upgrades; managing the grant process; helping with access to finance; engaging contractors to deliver the work; and quality assuring the work.
Homes, built and occupied pre-2011, and owned by private homeowners, non-corporate landlords and Approved Housing Bodies are eligible for the scheme. Individual apartments can receive support across the range of schemes.
It is also worth noting that a key feature of the new one stop shop model is that it will bring together groups of homes for aggregated projects thereby creating efficiencies in delivery and developing new innovation in processes and technologies.
More broadly, officials of my Department will be working with Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) to separately consider the best approach to deal with apartment buildings that are multi-unit buildings with common areas, rather than individual units. This will be investigated in 2022 to consider approaches to support whole building solutions.
