Home Energy Advisor trials “not promising”

Low uptake, low pay and low quality candidates

Submitted by: MikeC (Admin) on 02-Feb-10 02:46:55 PM

[Links and commentary below]

Nigel Farren, who, his website says, is involved in numerous think-tanks and panels feeding into Government on the rolling-out of domestic energy efficiency improvements, has written a couple of interesting articles on the early results of trials involving Home Energy Advisors (HEA).

The London Development Authority’s Home Energy Efficiency Programme (HEEP) trials for example, show that more than 70% of consumers did not take up easy measures offered even though they were free. Energy Savings Trust’s Penistone area project had only a 13% uptake. As a result, costs are currently around £2,000 per tonne of carbon saved.

Who should be Home Energy Advisers? - Homes Matter - Energy Efficiency Blog

Amongst other points raised, he criticises how low pay has attracted low-quality ‘HEAs’ – I quote that because he claims, “some vacancies are also being advertised without requirement for a City & Guilds Energy Awareness or DEA qualification or minimum standards of attire.”

Green Investment Bank

Not much detail on this yet but Tory shadow chancellor, George Osborne, today announced

a new Green Investment Bank to help create jobs in the low carbon industry at the same time as reducing harmful emissions.

George Osborne sets out new Tory economic benchmarks - Telegraph

RICS property valuers and energy efficiency

Robert Peto, president-elect of the RICS, mulls over the problems of building energy efficiency into property valuation models whilst the current rating tools – EPCs and DECs – contain blind-spots.

But what are needed is more effective sustainability indices and ratings. Energy performance certificates, display energy certificates, BREEAM ratings and other indicators of energy consumption potentially flag up those buildings that are likely to suffer early “sustainability obsolescence”. But they all have flaws. Energy performance certificates relate to buildings and not the energy consumption of an occupied property. Display energy certificates relate to actual energy consumption without regard to occupancy or square footage.

Valuers will be at the vanguard of real energy war - Property Week

Regular readers might remember last year’s consultation on the Government’s Heat and Energy Saving Strategy which proposed that RICS look into how it might include energy efficiency into a property’s valuation.

Is this a prelude to a surveyor’s takeover of the EPC mechanism?

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