Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 14 September 2022
102. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications if he will provide an update on the operation of one-stop shops in relation to the retrofitting scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44860/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraEarlier this year, Government announced an enhanced package of measures to support the uptake of home energy upgrades. This included a new National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme providing increased grant levels of up to 50% of the cost of a typical deep retrofit to a B2 BER standard and establishment of a network of registered One Stop Shops to offer a start-to-finish project management service, including access to financing, for home energy upgrades. Under the National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme, the One Stop Shops will provide a seamless and integrated service for homeowners with no visible handovers of customer communication or relationships within the home energy upgrade project.
Following Government approval, the SEAI registration portal opened for companies to apply to be a One-Stop-Shop, building on the preparatory work already undertaken. SEAI are focused on engaging organisations capable of professionally managing all aspects of a One Stop Shop service. Therefore, the registration process, for this new service, is necessarily robust.
There are 11 One-Stop-Shops registered with the SEAI and a 12th is expected to be announced shortly. In addition, SEAI continues to actively work with other applicant organisations to support them through this registration process and it is expected that up to 20 One Stop Shops will be in place by the end of this year. Details of all the One-Stop-Shops can be accessed at: www.seai.ie/grants/home-energy-grants/one-stop-shop/registered-providers/.
Figures for the end of August show 962 applications have been submitted to the SEAI for Home Energy Assessments and 556 Applications for Home Energy Upgrade works. The high demand for the scheme means there is a strong pipeline of works for the rest of this year and into 2023.
Overall demand across all of the SEAI retrofit schemes has been exceptionally high to date this year. Figures for the end of August show over 30,400 applications have been received to SEAI which is a significant increase on 2021 volumes. To the end of August, 13,406 home energy upgrades have been completed across the SEAI residential and community schemes. This marks an increase of almost 70% on the same period in 2021.
Latest SEAI projections indicate that approximately 26,000 home energy upgrades will be delivered this year.
