A simple assessment of housing retrofit policies for the UK: what should succeed the energy company obligation?
File(s)
Published version
OA Location
Author(s)
Miu, Luciana Maria
Wisniewska, Natalia
Mazur, Christoph
Hardy, Jeffrey
Hawkes, Adam
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Despite the need for large-scale retrofit of UK housing to meet emissions reduction targets, progress to date has been slow and domestic energy efficiency policies have struggled to accelerate housing retrofit processes. There is a need for housing retrofit policies that overcome key barriers within the retrofit sector while maintaining economic viability for customers, funding organizations, and effectively addressing UK emission reductions and fuel poverty targets. In this study, we use a simple assessment framework to assess three policies (the Variable Council Tax, the Variable Stamp Duty Land Tax, and Green Mortgage) proposed to replace the UK’s current major domestic retrofit programme known as the Energy Company Obligation (ECO). We show that the Variable Council Tax and Green Mortgage proposals have the greatest potential for overcoming the main barriers to retrofit policies while maintaining economic viability and contributing to high-level UK targets. We also show that, while none of the assessed schemes are capable of overcoming all retrofit barriers on their own, a mix of all three policies could address most barriers and provide key benefits such as wide coverage of property markets, operation on existing financial infrastructures, and application of a “carrot-and-stick” approach to incentivize retrofit. Lastly, we indicate that the specific support and protection of fuel-poor households cannot be achieved by a mix of these policies and a complementary scheme focused on fuel-poor households is required.
Date Issued
2018-08-08
Date Acceptance
2018-08-01
Citation
Energies, 2018, 11 (8)
ISSN
1996-1073
Publisher
MDPI AG
Journal / Book Title
Energies
Volume
11
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Sponsor
Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (E
Natural Environment Research Council [2006-2012]
Grant Number
ES/M500562/1
150847 - EP/N021479/1
NE/L002515/1
Subjects
09 Engineering
02 Physical Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 2070