Minister Rabbitte launches Better Energy

Government provides additional €30 million under Jobs Initiative for national retrofit programme.

Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte T.D, today launched Better Energy – The National Upgrade Programme which will streamline the existing residential programmes, support jobs and help consumers lower their energy bills. Welcoming the decision by the Minister for Finance to allocate an additional €30 million towards the new programme, Minister Rabbitte said, “Better Energy is a major step forward in this Government’s retrofitting programme. Given energy price trends and growing concerns over security of supply, the way we use energy is no longer simply a question of environmental responsibility but one of economic necessity. Every euro spent by homeowners and businesses on energy efficiency, not only brings about long term energy savings, but also helps support jobs and indigenous companies.”

The key elements of today’s announcement include:
 An additional €30M in Government funding in 2011
 The extra funding will support an additional 2,000 jobs in 2011
 The streamlining of programmes to make it easier for people to make an informed choice about the most suitable energy saving measure for them
 The involvement of the energy companies as partners in delivering energy savings.
 The start of the process of moving to new financial models such as pay as you save, which will foster sustained jobs and savings in this area.

What is Better Energy?
Put simply, Better Energy is a programme designed to ensure that there are more opportunities for householders and businesses to reduce their energy consumption leading to real and lasting cost savings.
Better Energy builds upon what was good about the existing grant schemes and adds a role for energy suppliers, a transition to an upfront discount rather than a retrospective grant and a national pay-as-you-save scheme.
Better Energy will replace the three existing programme: Home Energy Saving Scheme (HES), Warmer Homes Scheme (WHS) and Greener Homes Scheme (GHS), under one umbrella.

Better Energy

Where we are now?

Most people could improve their comfort and reduce their energy bills by upgrading the energy efficiency of their home. Actions include improving insulation, upgrading the boiler or installing better heating controls

Upgrades make economic sense given that heating bills can often be halved and so over a number of years the savings add up to more than the initial outlay

Government grants cover about one third of the cost of typical upgrade measures, and are proving very popular. More than 1,000 upgrades are being carried out every single week

This activity supports jobs, especially since upgrades tend to be labour intensive. More than 5000 full time jobs were supported in 2010. In the past two years, more than one quarter of a billion euro has been spent in the home energy upgrade sector in Ireland.

What comes next?

The next major evolution will be to find new ways to fund the upgrades so that more people can participate without the need to pay upfront to gain savings down the line. Innovative financing models such as “pay as you save” lend money for upgrades with repayments linked to the savings. The ideal model is when a homeowner pays nothing upfront and repays the cost of an upgrade at a rate the same as the energy bill reduction generated. Work is underway to move to this new system by 2013.