Leading energy
efficiency and fuel poverty organisations have identified that the Governments
estimated costs of the Energy Company Obligation Extension could be significantly
overstated meaning thousands of fuel poor households will miss out on much
needed support.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has recently conducted a consultation on the £640m, one year extension of the
Energy Company Obligation from April 2017 to the end of March 2018. The consultation
included an impact assessment which sets out the assumed costs of delivering
the programme and the target for the programme including the number of energy
efficiency measures to be provided to householders based on these assumed
costs.
The NIA working in conjunction with a number of other leading energy efficiency and fuel poverty organisations has identified that the costs
in the impact assessment could be significantly overestimated possibly by more
than £200m. This is of great concern given that 70% of the funding support will
be directed at helping fuel poor households and if this is not corrected will result in
fuel poor households receiving allot less support than they could otherwise.
Neil Marshall CEO of NIA commented: “We are extremely
concerned that the costs of delivery have been overstated and we along with
other organisations have provided information and evidence to the Department for
BEIS as to where we believe the overestimate of costs has arisen. We will be
working with Government officials and others including fuel poverty
organisations over the coming months before final decisions are made in
reviewing these costs. If our calculations are verified and accepted,
Government will have the opportunity to revise the costs and set a target around
35% higher than the current proposal meaning thousands more fuel poor households
could benefit."
