Delivering energy efficiency and carbon reduction schemes in England: Lessons from Green Deal Pioneer Places

Robert D. Marchand, S.C. Lenny Koh and Jonathan C. Morris

Energy Policy, 2015, vol. 84, issue C, 96-106

Abstract: Against a background of growing international and national carbon reduction legislation, the UK government introduced the “Green Deal” to deliver a significant increase in housing energy efficiency and reduction in carbon emissions. This paper reflects on one English local authority's experience delivering a programme intended to foster local interest in the Green Deal. Drawing on social surveys and pre and post Green Deal intervention interviews with five demonstrator homes (households that applied to receive a Green Deal package fully funded by the scheme, providing a test bed for the Green Deal recruitment and installation process), this paper shows that awareness and understanding of the Green Deal scheme is low. There is opposition to the cost of finance offered but a strong interest in improving household warmth and for funding improvements through payments added to the electricity bill. Demonstrator home residents perceived Green Deals had improved the warmth and quality of their home, but saving money was the primary motivator for their involvement, not increasing warmth. Whilst Green Deal has not delivered the level of success that was hoped, much can be learned from the scheme to improve future energy efficiency schemes that will be necessary to deliver emission reduction commitments.

Keywords: Green deal; Energy efficiency; Carbon reduction; Housing; Fuel poverty; Retrofit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421515001858
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:84:y:2015:i:c:p:96-106

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2015.04.035

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().