The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has announced that it is making changes to its Green Deal Cashback Scheme so that applicants can claim back more money on the contributions they make to energy-efficiency improvements.

The Green Deal, officially launched last January, enables households and small businesses to take out loans to make 45 different types of adjustment to their property in the interest of energy savings. The loan would then be repaid through electricity bills by whoever is using the property.

It is intended to reduce the effects of ‘leaky buildings’, responsible for 38 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

However, applicants will only be successful in taking-up the Green Deal if the energy savings a property makes in a 25-year period (it is possible to choose a shorter period of time, but return on investment must be paid for within the time period) must be equal to or more than the cost of implementing the changes in the first place. This caveat is known as the ‘golden rule’.

As an element of the deal, the Green Deal Cashback Scheme (for households in England and Wales only) was launched to allow applicants to claim money back from government for certain energy-saving improvements.

Details of cashback uplift

It has now been announced that to ‘help more families have warmer, more energy efficient homes and lower energy bills by next winter’, DECC has increased the level of reimbursement claimants can get for certain measures.

For any applications made on or after 13 December 2013, applicants could receive:

• up to £4,000 for solid wall-insulation (up from £650);
• up to £1,000 for ‘room in roof’ insulation (up from £220); and
• up to £650 for double glazing, (up from £320).
• The DECC has also raised the cap from 50 per cent of a household’s spending on adjustment, to two-thirds.

However some cashback rates will remain unchanged, such as any adjustments made to the boiler. Those grants the DECC says are ‘very unlikely to change’ as the values for these improvements have not changed.

The DECC has also raised the cap on cash-back payments from 50 per cent of a household’s spending on adjustment, to two-thirds.

To accommodate the new rules, the deadline for receiving cashback applicants has been extended, so that households can apply for money back from 31 March 2014 to 30 June 2014, with energy improvements to be installed, and vouchers redeemed, by 30 September 2014.

The Green Deal Cashback Scheme was originally intended to run until March 2014.

Speaking of the changes, Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker, said: “Inefficient homes use a lot more energy than they need to, which consumers pay a high price for.

“The extension and increase to Green Deal Cashback means more families will be helped to have warmer, more energy efficient homes and lower energy bills by next winter. These changes also create more opportunities for the growing number of authorised green deal companies.”

The Cashback Administrator will now write to customers likely to qualify from the new rates.

Problems and Controversy over the ‘Green Deal’

Despite government’s estimate that the Green Deal would be take up by some 14 million participants, actual participation has been low.

Indeed, official figures showed that in the first six months of the scheme, just four people had taken up the Green Deal. This was despite 38,259 houses having undergone the Green Assessment.

The first Green Deal went ‘live’ in August, some eight months after the project’s launch. Speaking last year, Friends of the Earth ‘Warm Homes’ Campaigner Dave Trimms, said that the government’s efforts in making energy bills affordable and tackling climate change were ‘falling embarrassingly short’.

Find out more about the changes to the Green Deal Cashback Scheme.