With spiralling energy costs, the government must invest in a long-term energy efficiency strategy for the UK if we are to permanently tackle the energy crisis and achieve our climate targets.
Immediate measures for those hit hardest by the energy price cap rise will help partly tackle the immediate financial challenges that many UK families face.
However, long-term targeted investment to improve the energy efficiency of our housing stock is also required if we are to truly lift people out of fuel poverty permanently - as well as free us from fossil fuels so we can achieve our climate goals.
The UK’s supply chain and providers of net zero retrofit need time to gear up and prepare to deliver retrofit at the scale and speed we need. This requires long-term government commitment rather than the current stop-start funding schemes.
That’s why we continue to call for a clear National Retrofit Strategy with £250m of innovation investment over five years to unlock retrofit as a key part of the net-zero industrial revolution. This is completely in line with Rishi Sunak’s words today about the government’s plans to: “drive businesses to invest and innovate more and unleashing a skills revolution.”
Alongside a clear target, five – seven years of innovation funding following the “commit and review” Offshore Wind Accelerator arrangement would enable the development of factories, products and processes to decrease unit cost and increase speed of deployment for deep retrofit.
This would kickstart and create a self-sustaining retrofit market to deliver our 2050 goals without expensive subsidies, tackling many of our converging social and economic challenges by:
Find out more about how the revolutionary Energiesprong model for whole house retrofit is designed to unlock a functioning, self-financing net-zero retrofit market.
