Annual installations must increase tenfold to meet EAC’s target
The Environmental Audit Committee has called for a national mobilisation to improve the energy efficiency of buildings across the country.
In a new report, the Commons select committee called for at least one million energy efficiency installations a year by 2025, a massive increase on recent years with fewer than 100,000 upgrades being carried out in 2021.
While it welcomed chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s recent announcement of an energy efficiency taskforce and further investment from 2025, it said those in the 13 million homes in England rated below EPC could not wait for three winters of delay and criticised the government for failing to accelerate energy efficiency installations in the warmer months of last year.
The report said Hunt’s taskforce should be directed to estimate the levels and workforce skills needed for the ramp up and allocate a proportion of the Energy Profits Levy to help fund energy efficiency improvements.
Committee chair Philip Dunne: “To reduce the UK’s demand on fossil fuels, we must stop consuming more than we need.
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“We must fix our leaky housing stock, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and wastes our constituents’ hard earned cash: we must make homes warmer and retain heat for longer.”
Other measures advocated in the report included setting a clear date for ending new oil and gas licensing rounds and requiring developers to fit solar panels on new homes.
Reacting to the report, Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment chief executive Sarah Mukherjee said it was “vital that we support the upskilling of people” in mobilising toward the green economy of the future.
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