Ireland has achieved a huge rise in ‘deep retrofits’ – home upgrades that bring a major energy-efficiency boost. The number of homes benefitting recently rose by 108% in a single year. Watch as Stephen Farrell from Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland shares insights from his country’s retrofit ‘one stop shop programme.’ Key lessons include:
- Keep the process as simple as possible for householders, and offer discounted whole house plans.
- Support both a one-time deep retrofit and an ‘individual measures’ approach. Enable this with whole-house plans that allow flexibility for people who need to spread the costs and disruption over several years.
- Involve architects – the moment when a house is being extended is a great opportunity to retrofit.
- Offer low cost finance.
- Run schemes over multiple years to give the supply chain confidence.
Another key factor has been The Irish National Retrofit Plan. This has brough 8billion Euro committed funding to 2030, and using grants to encourage retrofit by households on a range of incomes. In the UK, Ashden is working in coalition to advocate for investment in creating warmer, more resilient and healthy homes.