Green Deal finally gets first package installed

The struggling Green Deal has finally got its first "live" package up and running, according to the latest figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc).

The government’s flagship energy efficiency scheme, which was launched at the end of January, has got its first Green Deal Plan signed and installed.

There were 418 other Green Deal Plans in the system, 286 “new” plans – where the consumer has had an assessment and said they wish to proceed with the measures – and 132 “pending” plans – when a plan has been signed by the customer, progress is being made to install measures and the plan is being finalised so that charging can start – by the end of July.

These are up from 270 and 36 plans respectively on the previous month.

There had been a total of 58,124 Green Deal assessments lodged up to the end of July, up from 44,479 at end of June.

The Green Deal cashback scheme has also issued 7,461 vouchers; 4,256 of these had been paid up to the end of July with a value of £1,162,386 and “virtually all” of this funding had been used on boiler replacements.

Climate Change minister Greg Barker, once again defended the Green Deal figures, saying: “This ambitious long-term programme is still in its initial months, but over 58,000 Green Deal assessments shows genuine consumer interest and we expect continued steady growth as we go into the winter.

The Decc figures also revealed that 149,681 measures under the Energy Company Obligation (Eco) had been installed, with 33,934 of these being completed in June.

Loft insulation made up 45 per cent of all the installed measures, cavity wall insulation 33 per cent, and boiler upgrades 18 per cent.

A total of £175 million worth of contracts had been let through ECO brokerage up to end of July compared to £145 million at the end of June.