Asked by: Caroline Flint (Labour - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to increase the rate of delivery of insulation measures under the Energy Company Obligation.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Department keeps delivery progress in constant review. ECO3 is a three and a half year scheme and obligated suppliers may deliver the obligation at any time during the obligation period. Historically, delivery has been low at the start of each scheme while suppliers end one obligation period and start to build up momentum under the new scheme rules.
The scheme allows participating Local Authorities to determine eligibility and refer households to obligated suppliers, and in those cases removing the need for suppliers to target eligible households. This is a voluntary mechanism for suppliers to use, and it equates to up to 25% of ECO.
The regulations have been in force for less than six months, and there is time for suppliers to increase delivery rate up to the end of the scheme in March 2022.
Almost 2.5m insulation, heating and other measures have been delivered since ECO began in 2013. Of those 66% were for insulation. Under ECO3, so far over 54k measures have been installed. Of those, 55% were for insulation.
Asked by: Caroline Flint (Labour - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of progress towards its ambition of ensuring that all homes achieve an Energy Performance Certificate rating of Band C by 2015, as set out in the Clean Growth Strategy.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
For the purpose of this response, I assume that the question is referring to the ambition for homes to reach Band C by 2035, rather than 2015. Good progress has already been made improving the energy performance of our housing stock, with 30% of homes in England at Band C or above, with a further 51% already at Band D, according to the 2017 English Housing Survey. This is up from 7% and 40% respectively in 2007.
Since the publication of the Clean Growth Strategy we have:
Asked by: Caroline Flint (Labour - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many households have been fitted with (a) cavity wall and (b) loft insulation under the Energy Company Obligation since the beginning of the ECO3 obligation period on 3 December 2018.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Since the start of the ECO3 obligation, 14,983 cavity wall insulations and 10,951 loft insulations have been installed in homes up to the end of March 2019.
Asked by: Caroline Flint (Labour - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department plans to take to respond to concerns raised by representatives of the solar industry on the proposed Smart Export Guarantee scheme.
Answered by Claire Perry
The consultation on a Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) closed on 5 March 2019. We are currently analysing the responses we received and will publish a government response in due course. The consultation is available here:
www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-future-for-small-scale-low-carbon-generation
Asked by: Caroline Flint (Labour - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Department has taken to ensure that solar power is able to compete on a level playing field with other energy generation technologies.
Answered by Claire Perry
Solar is a UK success story. Since 2010, solar capacity deployed has accounted for 81% of total capacity deployed under the Feed-in Tariffs scheme.
We issued a consultation on new proposals for a Smart Export Guarantee to support future arrangements for small-scale low-carbon generators to receive payment for the electricity they export to the grid. The consultation closes on the 5th March 2019 and can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-future-for-small-scale-low-carbon-generation.