More on the Conservatives' housing retrofit plans

I blogged last week about plans by the British Conservative Party to introduce a pay-as-you-save scheme that would allow consumers to energy upgrade their homes and pay for the work over time on their bills.

An article in the Guardian by the party's energy and climate spokesperson Greg Clark offers more detail. Clark writes:

That is why I set out our green deal – an ambitious plan to give every home in Britain an entitlement to energy efficiency improvements up to £6,500 in value. Every homeowner would be entitled to an independent assessment of what energy efficiency work is worthwhile and would save money.

They then get an entitlement to have these improvements carried out immediately by a kite-marked installer at no upfront cost. The cost of the work is repaid over 25 years via the home's energy bills.

The assessment will ensure that the measures carried out will be those where savings in energy bills are greater than the cost of repaying the amount borrowed. That means that families will be able to make their homes more efficient, pay back the cost over time, and still save money from day one.

He adds:

Yesterday we took this policy a step further. We announced that the mayor of London and 14 local councils, covering between them more than 6m homes, have agreed to pilot our green deal scheme should a Conservative government be elected next year.

Importantly, these local authorities have local expertise and knowledge, and will help us to roll the green deal out on a street-by-street basis, targeting first those people most in need of cutting their fuel bills and heating their homes.

As well as helping more families, a properly national scheme has other advantages. It could directly create 36,000 jobs in installing and surveying, with a further 42,000 jobs indirectly created in the energy efficiency supply chain. And because we are committed to apprenticeships, we will ensure one in 10 of the new direct jobs created by the green deal are to be "green apprenticeships" – over 3,500 new apprenticeships in total.

Interestingly, Clark criticises the (UK) Labour Party's plans for a pay-as-you-save scheme, claiming it will help only 500 families over two years. And that does seem to be the case - see details of Labour's plans here.