DECC’s Household Energy Efficiency Statistics: the good, the bad and the whaa…?

(UKAce, 28 Apr 2016) DECC recently published statistics on the take-up of energy efficiency measures by households during 2015. In this blog post, we unpick some of the data, exploring the good, the bad and the frankly baffling within the rich data set provided.

How did policy announcements affect the market? Have whole-house energy assessments unlocked energy efficiency opportunities? And could we have found the elusive answer for improving the private rented sector?

Let’s start with the good news:

Overall, ECO has installed energy efficiency measures in around 5% of households in Great Britain.
In 2015, 320,000 homes had cavity wall insulation installed, 230,000 had new loft insulation, and 50,000 had solid wall insulation fitted.
Scotland, the North East and the North West had the highest hit rates per 1,000 homes of ECO installations. The West Midlands and South Wales did well too.
Over 620,000 Green Deal Assessments have been carried out – a rich data set!
And by the end of September 2015, over 1.6 million smart meters had been installed (though the report does acknowledge that there’s no real crossover of data with energy efficiency programme delivery).