MSE News: Green Deal launches to help insulate homes

grahamc2003

Ecodave wrote: »

Hi Graham,

Thanks for the clarification. Your points regarding the scheme basically having too many fingers in the pie for it to be cost effective is fine if you can come up with a mechanism that works better. This must provide all the customer safeguards that are present in GD, in order to be a proper comparison. It should also be as inclusive as GD is. In other words, just like the GD. There are costs to providing these safeguards, and I would prefer a system with safeguards to a cheaper system without them.

I can't agree that funding works such as SWI is against a customers interest. How do you justify that?

The interest rate makes the Golden Rule harder, but any Plan that goes ahead can realistically expect to achieve the savings stated, subject to sensible caveats surrounding occupant behaviour.

You seem to be saying that any system is beyond criticism unless there's a proposal for a better system on the table. Well that certainly is no justification for a system which is looking to have flaws all over the place. How can I come up with an alternative proposal to system which has taken probably tens of millions in consultants fees to get this far?

For a start, I'd need a list of requirements as to what the green deal is supposed to achieve. Is there such a document, with a complete list of requirements? It's extremely difficult in this case to look at what the system does and how it does and, and try to see what the requirements of the system actually are. These are political systems, not engineering systems, i.e. they are about creating some sort of positive impression rather than actually improving the housing stock in some way at the minimum cost.

I'd guess at the real requirements (rather than any published requirements) are to get some people off the dole while implementing 'green' inspired ideas which may or may not be effective, funded by debt on those who are likely to already be in debt and probably don't appreciate the likely consequences of further debt. The complexity of the system looks to me like a typical system led by expensive consultants running rings around the decision makers I see at DECC.

You say there are many safeguards built into GD. I'm thinking more and more that vulnerable consumers need to be protected from the GD itself, being premised on long term debt. The selling of GD will be easy - the incredibly powerful sales line will be that it costs nothing to have improvements, due to the 'Golden Rule'. My view is that easy selling line will mean any work eventually done will, from simple supply and demand, together with the reduced and protected market participants, be very expensive. Why should the naive be concerned with the cost if they think it costs them nothing? Easy money indeed. Of course, the debt is still there which has to be shifted onto someone else which, as many on here seem to think, will be much more difficult that those in the bizz seem to think.

As to alternatives. Well a couple of years ago, my suppliers said I could have 'free' (i.e. paid for by others, so not free), CVI. I appllied, a surveyor (not a salesman) came, drilled a few holes in my wall (after getting my permission), measured this and that, said I qualified, and a few days later the cvi installers arrived and filled my cavity. No paperwork/bills/selling involved. For cvi, that seemed a very efficient system, in terms of the total cost for the work done. (just to be clear, I'm not saying it was efficient because it cost me nothing - it was efficient because it cost society at large the minimum imv).

Ecodave

I wouldn't agree that the GD has flaws all over the place, I would agree with your point that you don't have to have an alternative in mind if you want to criticise it. My point, badly made, was that if we are going to acieve the goals that the GD and other policies are designed to tackle, then we need an alternative to what's on the table. The previous scheme worked to a point, but many ignored the offer of free insulation (we are a distrustful lot, you get nowt for free do you?) and even that scheme could do nothing to tackle the main problem, older and hard-to-treat properties.

The ultimate objective is to reduce co2 emissions. It's a nice bonus that lots of jobs will be created, but not a major goal. We need to reduce co2 emissions because of climate change. I don't really want to get into an argument about whether or not climate change is man made, it would take over the thread, and we wouldn't get anywhere. But even if you personally don't feel that climate change is a reality, the government does, and we are committed to reducing our emissions by certain deadlines. If we are to avoid massive fines, then we need to reduce co2 emissions.

So if you throw GD out of the window, then lets have something else on the table that can deliver the reductions in emissions.

victor2

Ecodave wrote: »

The ultimate objective is to reduce co2 emissions.

Add to that, at minimal/no cost to the government.
So, sell it to the gullible, harder up, public in such a way that most of them will believe it's costing them nothing. In fact, they'll believe it will save them money.

Ecodave

Hi Victor2,

Can I take it that you would prefer them to foot the bill and then the budget for some other department is cut. Education? NHS? Or maybe you would be happy to see income tax go up to pay for it? If none of these, than can you tell me the method of financing you would prefer?

victor2

Ecodave wrote: »

Hi Victor2,

Can I take it that you would prefer them to foot the bill and then the budget for some other department is cut. Education? NHS? Or maybe you would be happy to see income tax go up to pay for it? If none of these, than can you tell me the method of financing you would prefer?

What I think is wrong is the way it is being presented as a money saving benefit, when that is dubious at best. If the government really wants us to reduce the co2 output, then invest (our tax) money in showing us how we can cut our costs by using less energy and a by-product of that will be reducing co2 output.

Ecodave

Can you tell me why you think the "savings" are dubious at best. It seems like the methods used to arrive at them appear sound to me.

victor2

Ecodave wrote: »

Can you tell me why you think the "savings" are dubious at best. It seems like the methods used to arrive at them appear sound to me.

From the initial MSE report:

You pay back the loan based on your expected savings from using less energy.
If it's assessed that average savings for your home would be £10 each month, you'll pay £10 a month back. This helps determine the length of the loan.

However, if you don't make these savings you still have to pay that same sum
back.

So, if it goes as planned, while you could reduce your utility bill, you'll be paying back what the anticipated savings were. Net saving - Zero.
Of course, maybe the assessors will be trained to underestimate the savings, so that the tax payers foot the bill up front, with little chance of it being fully repaid, and the tax payers reduce their ongoing utility cost.

Sorry, but IMO the millions spent so far on this idea would have been better spent showing us ways to further reduce our energy usage and cost. Something most of us want to do as our utility bills increase ever upwards.

Who in their right mind would take out a loan for nothing, which indirectly costs you nothing, but reduces the value of your property until it's paid off?

Ecodave

Hi Victor,

The piece you have quoted there is a little misleading. The maximum that a Green Deal Provider can charge you in monthly repayments is capped at the amount equivalent to the figure produced on the EPC as estimated savings. In many cases the savings will far exceed the payments. In other cases, where the Golden Rule has been pushed up to its limit, in theory you should make no loss and no profit. However, because the policy makers are keen not to be faced with people being out of pocket, they have insisted that a buffer zone was built into the calculations. So even in these circumstances, you should have daylight between the savings acheived and the charges for the measures.

penrhyn

My od gas boiler is probably only 60 % efficient , if that, my annual gas bill is around £500 per year.
A new boiler would cost me say £2500, and be say 95% efficient, so I'd use 35% less gas a saving of £175 a year, pay back period would be around 14 years, before I started saving anything.
Of course the old boiler could pack up at any time, but new gas boilers are far more complex than the old ones and would probably need replacing before the savings materialised.

I know the figures are simplistic.

Ecodave

Yes, the figures used are unrealistic. If you had a boiler that was 60% efficient , then I would expect your bills to be much higher than £500. I guess you could say that you live in a very well insulated house. In that case you have the decision to make about when do you replace your 30 year old boiler (they haven't made 60% efficient boilers for quite some time).

Of course you can pay for the boiler yourself and start saving that £175 a year, go for it. Of course some people don't have the luxury of having the £2500 in the bank to be able to do that. Many cant even get the finance. For some, it's not their house, and the landlord steadfastly refuses to upgrade the boiler. Lots of reasons why someone might want (maybe, need) to use the Green Deal.