Building looks into a report on household energy efficiency schemes from the Public Accounts Committee

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The take-up of Green Deal loans was “abysmal” because the scheme had not been tested with consumers, according to a damning report from MPs.

A report into household energy efficiency schemes from the Public Accounts Committee found that the scheme, set up in 2013, provided £50m in 14,000 loans to households for energy efficiency measures.

This was far lower than a “wildly optimistic” estimate from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that the Green Deal would provide £1.1bn in loans by the end of 2015, the report said.

It also found the Green Deal finance company incurred large losses as a result of the low demand for the loans, resulting in DECC writing off £25m of the amount it lent to the company.

Richard Twinn, policy adviser at the UK Green Building Council, said the report “makes clear that implementation of the Green Deal was woefully inadequate.”
He added: “The wildly optimistic forecasts about take-up were never realistic.”

The report also said that while the complementary energy company obligation scheme led to improvements in 1.4m homes, DECC had no information to measure progress against policy objectives including reducing fuel poverty.