Committee on Climate Change

The main policies currently in place to reduce emissions from homes include:

• The Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) - an obligation placed on energy suppliers to provide free or subsidised energy efficiency measures in customers’ homes.
• Fuel poverty schemes (primarily Warmfront), the Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP) and Devolved Administration schemes.
• Building regulations to ensure new homes and modifications to existing homes meet high energy efficiency standards.
• Policies to improve the energy efficiency of household appliances and electronic products.
• The roll out of smart meters to all homes which enable homeowners to make choices and improve awareness of how much energy they use.

In the Committees 1st progress report, published October 2009, we stressed the need for a new policy framework to deliver a much higher level of ambition on energy efficiency.

The new Government’s Energy Security and Green Economy Bill is designed to provide a step change in the provisions of energy efficiency measures to homes by delivering:

• The Green Deal – will introduce a new financing mechanism to allow the obligation to repay the costs of energy efficiency measures to attach to the energy bill of the property, rather than to an individual. It is expected to take effect in 2012.
• Energy company obligation - will replace CERT when it expires at the end of 2012, with particular focus on vulnerable households and properties that are hard to treat such as solid wall houses, and therefore may require additional support to that offered by the Green Deal.