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New ROI energy grants ROI homeowners will now be able to claim up to half of the cost of their home’s energy upgrade, under a new Deep Retrofit scheme launched at the SEAI Energy Show, however you will have to group with your neighbours to qualify. €5 million has been ring fenced for homeowners who want to upgrade their homes to an ‘A’ rating on the Building Energy Rating (BER) scale. The scheme is being rolled out on a pilot basis and will require a fabric first approach as well as introducing a low carbon heating system (non fossil fuel). The grant will fund up to half the cost of upgrades for individual householders and will be administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). Deep retrofit is a significant upgrade to bring a home as close as possible to Nearly Zero Energy Building standards, which is due to be transposed into law in 2019 with a public consultation phase to start early in 2018. The €5m scheme will be administered by SEAI and will make funds available on a rolling basis to community groups, to
Local Authorities and to Energy Agencies. “It is available to any group that can pull together groups of people who want to invest in a major energy efficiency improvement to their home,” noted the Department of Communications, Climate Action & Environment’s press release. The programme is in line with
government policy that aims to encourage a more collaborative approach to energy upgrades; district heating schemes for example are rare in Ireland but provide a much more efficient and less carbon intensive way of heating our homes. The Tipperary Energy Agency’s Superhomes programme provides a similar
Deep Retrofit incentive, funding up to 50 per cent of the energy upgrade and without the community group caveat (homes are upgraded individually). ROI Minister for Energy Denis Naughten, meanwhile, announced the introduction of 95 per cent subsidies for those in energy poverty at the SEAI’s first deep retrofit conference in June. The Minister said almost all of the 1.3 million homes in ROI needed a deep retrofit,with SEAI figures showing the Irish energy retrofit market could be worth over €35 billion to 2050. Naughten also hinted at the importance of the Internet of Things and the rollout of broadband to rural areas as a key measure to reduce energy use at source. SEAI chief executive Jim Gannon also commented on the need to inform consumers on the benefits of deep retrofit - from health, comfort and energy savings - highlighting the challenges associated to the €25,000+ investment required for a significant upgrade.
What makes us tick SELF-BUILDERS WANT THEIR ENERGY EFFICIENCY INVESTMENTS to have a pay back of less than four years, highlights a study by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) entitled Behavioural insights on energy efficiency in the residential sector. The reoprt estimates that a ‘deep retrofit’ – bringing a property from a G on the Building Energy Rating (BER) scale to current standards – could cost a whopping €30,000 to €40,000. Over 150,000 dwellings in ROI are G-rated with over one million dwellings with a BER rating of C or lower. The report also estimates that more than one in four ROI households could be in energy poverty (defined as more than 10 per cent of household income required to maintain set comfort levels). While comfort and health are key factors in decision making, cost unsurprisingly remains
the most significant barrier to a significant uptake in energy efficiency measures. Over 70 per cent of respondents stated that “not having sufficient funds” was the main reason
for putting this type of home improvement work on the long finger. Grants are another important part of the equation, as they have an ’emotional impact’ – the SEAI quantifies that a €1 grant corresponds to €1.30 in consumers’ minds. Getting homeowners to carry out deep retrofits at their ‘trigger points’ – the time when they decide to invest in an energy upgrade – was a key finding. This is because a homeowner who has just carried out an extensive renovation but has not installed all the potential energy efficiency measures might not consider renovating the house again for 15 years. That said, households who had previously completed a retrofit were found to be willing to pay more than twice as much as homes retrofitting for the first time. AU T U M N 2 0 1 7 / S E L F B U I L D / 1 3