Lack of coherent energy efficiency plan leaves gaping hole in measures to deal with household energy costs suggests Institute for Government
If in England we don't have a proper home insulation and energy efficiency upgrade plan then, effectively, the money about to be thrown at the energy price freeze by the new Govt may not actually count for much in the long term says new analysis.
The respected Institute for Government's (IfG) analysis - Tackling the UK's Energy Efficiency Problem (September 2022) - points out that Liz Truss's current long term plan to deal with rising costs concentrates on increased energy production from fracking on-land and increased North sea oil production. But IfG says the new Govt has completely ignored the possibilities raised of reduction in energy use (and thus household costs) via efficiency savings.
England should follow the examples set by other countries in Europe, such as Germany, but we are currently bottom of the rankings, says IfG, of different European countries with a range of different climates when it comes to long term energy efficiency and it's funding.
In England, previous Governments over the last 10 years never followed through with energy efficiency programmes that they started but then let fall away (with a resulting fracturing of the confidence of consumers and expertise amongst installers) . We are thus left with the coldest, oldest homes across Europe at a time of crisis when households do not have the resilience to cope with fuel costs that will likely remain volatile through to 2025 even if as a country we increase our own production. Currently, an English home with an indoor temperature of 20 degrees centigrade when the outside temperature is zero, loses heat at three times the speed of a similar property in other European countries.
The English private rented sector comes off worse than the social rented sector in this regard in the analysis but all tenures need sustained and targeted support to get up to scratch.
The IfG says a properly funded (at a relative fraction of the £170 billion said to be planned by the Govt for the energy freeze etc programme) insulation and upgrade programme could see results for households within a year.