Martyn Bridges, director of marketing and technical support at Worcester, Bosch Group, said: “The idea that homeowners could find themselves benefitting from both reduced energy bills and reduced council tax has the potential to be one of the strongest energy efficiency incentives introduced to date.
“The fact is, even if our construction industry never built another house, the UK will continue to struggle to meet its energy efficiency targets unless radical change is made to the performance of our existing housing stock. Given the UK’s obligations to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050 under the Climate Change Act, we need to do more to stop energy being lost at the point of use, and that means doing all we can to incentivise change amongst homeowners.
“At appliance level, the mandatory status of condensing boilers has helped to minimise emissions, as has the introduction of the ErP Directive, but we now find ourselves in a position where we need to motivate homeowners to take this even further by considering the way they heat and insulate their properties. Arguably, the best way to do that is to offer a financial incentive which is simple to understand and access.”