Green Deal puts industry ‘at risk of mis-selling’

by Janet Wood

The industry must beware of mis-selling and learn the lessons from the experience of the photovoltaics (PV) industry when the Green Deal is offered to householders, delegates at a Utility Week discussion at Sustainability Live! heard.

A consistent policy and measures to avoid mis-selling will be required to allow the market to develop, the group agreed.

Jean-Pascal Boulin, clean energy and sustainability partner at Eversheds, pointed out that although there was a five-year warranty on measures installed under the Green Deal, there could be no guarantee that the “golden rule” (that repayments would be covered by energy bill savings) would persist once the deal was done, because energy prices would change.

Andy Deacon, head of local delivery at the Energy Saving Trust, also said few customers would check their savings against the estimate made by the installer.

Boulin warned that the current process for setting up the installation could take six months and involve four or five visits to the property. He said there were “too many players and too many steps” and as a consequence a “huge danger of mis-selling”. The group – speaking as home services company Homeserve was the subject of a fresh probe over mis-selling – said the industry should learn from the experience of installing solar thermal and PV.

Deacon said there was likely to be a role for local authorities, who could act as providers.

Filippo Gaddo, senior manager at Ernst & Young, said the government needed to build confidence in both equipment and finance providers. Comparing it with another aspect of the PV rollout, he said there must be no policy U-turns.

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 1 June 2012.

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