Cost of going green: £7,000 a home

Published Date: 09 October 2009
By SHÂN ROSS
IT WILL cost £16 billion to make homes in Scotland energy- efficient over the next decade, according to a new report.
The Scottish Government's new action plan on energy efficiency, published yesterday, revealed the price of steps such as improving insulation and replacing inefficient boilers.It estimated that this would cost £7,000 per home – a total of £16 billion.Last night, environmental campaigners WWF Scotland said it would be "money well spent". The figure, in "A Consultation on the Energy Efficiency Action Plan for Scotland" came as finance secretary John Swinney announced a £2 million pilot loans scheme to help pay for home- efficiency measures. The cash is aimed at helping to cut carbon emissions from homes by 42 per cent by 2020. Interest-free loans of between £500 and £10,000 will be available. Mr Swinney said: "The new scheme will provide practical measures that can make the quickest impacts – interest-free loans to upgrade insulation, replace inefficient boilers or install double glazing or small-scale renewables."Elizabeth Leighton, senior policy officer at WWF Scotland, said: " Scotland's homes account for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore making them low-carbon is key to Scotland achieving its 42 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. "Improving home energy efficiency is a win for not only for carbon savings but for lifting people out of fuel poverty and creating thousands of green jobs."The £16 billion price tag sounds a massive sum, but it would be spread over a decade and the cash will come from a mix of sources including energy companies and householders as well as the public purse." Campaign group Friends of the Earth Scotland welcomed the launch of the consultation but called for more cash and regulation to cut energy use.Chief executive Duncan McLaren said: "The government's figure of £7,000 per home may seem eye-watering but compared to the average house value in Scotland, it's a small investment to make homes fit for the future."Government spending of at least £100 million per year is necessary to deliver energy savings and jobs at the scale required."The Scottish Greens described the plans as "underwhelming and unsatisfactory". Patrick Harvie MSP said: "SNP ministers want us to believe they understand the benefits and opportunities real energy efficiency can bring. "Their rhetoric may be excellent, but their actual commitments remain a spectacular disappointment. The loan scheme they're proposing is not even close to the scheme we proposed in last year's Budget. It's a drop in the ocean, a bare minimum so ministers can say with a half-straight face that they've done what they promised."Mr Harvie claimed that even if every penny was spent on delivering energy-efficiency measures, it would not get the job done in "300 Scottish homes out of more than two million".He added: "To make it work, to make a real difference to those with hard-to-treat homes, we'd need to see a fund worth tens of millions."