Green Deal & ECO in London – six months in

September 2013: Following the publication of the first quarterly set of detailed Green Deal and ECO (Energy Company Obligation) data back in July (details of which are outlined in the following post here) DECC has now published the much anticipated second quarter’s data set on 19 September 2013 (press release here).

In contrast to the regular monthly DECC datasets, the quarterly data provides a regional breakdown of  i.Green Deal assessments undertaken ii. ECO measures installed and data on iii. Green Deal cashback vouchers offered, allowing some idea of how the Government’s new energy efficiency regime is progressing in London.

An initial analysis indicates that London appears to have done quite well in terms of the number of Green Deal assessments undertaken. The data tables of the September release indicate that:

• 5,947 Green Deal assessments were undertaken in London over the period January to June 2013
• This represents 13% of the total national number of assessments undertaken – an increase over the 10% level observed during the first three-month period
• The top ‘performers’ in terms of assessments per borough were Haringey (601 assessments), Ealing (506), Tower Hamlets (487), Southwark (411) and Brent (331) – the full London table is copied below.
• Perhaps somewhat predictably, the City of London scored low – but only 1 assessment to date?
• There are some perhaps surprising results in outer London, with boroughs such as Merton (35), Redbridge (47) and Sutton (62) all having low levels of activity
• Also surprising was that the Secretary of State for Energy’s local authority – Kingston upon Thames – only managed 70 assessments over the six-month period (Ed Davey is the MP for the constituency of Kingston and Surbiton in south London)
• It should be noted that many London boroughs received funding under the Government’s one-off ‘Green Deal Pioneer Places‘ programme. As a result, many boroughs, including front-runner Haringay, were able to offer residents free Green Deal assessments, all of which makes the longer-term take-up of assessments hard to determine
• And, despite knowing how many assessments have been completed, there is no guarantee that these will necessarily result in actual energy efficiency solutions being installed.
• Disappointingly data in Table 6 – on the number of Green Deal ‘cashback vouchers‘ paid by Government (the £125m ‘first come first served sweetener’ offered by Government to kick-off the Green Deal) – shows that London has the third lowest number claimed so far (Hounslow, Bromley and Richmond claimed the highest numbers of vouchers  24, 25 and 26 respectively)
• The dataset also includes information on work undertaken through the ECO. As such, in many respects, Table 9a of the dataset provides the more important measure, which is energy efficiency funding committed under the energy suppliers obligation. Here it can be seen that London has received around 8% of the total ECO support to date  with different levels of local authority activity than that to the Green Deal. Here Enfield and Newham have received the highest level of ECO funding from energy suppliers, followed by Waltham Forest and Haringey.

It’s still early days for both the ECO and Green Deal: as mentioned above it’s unclear how many Green Deal assessments will result in actual work; regular ECO brokerage auctions have taken place, but it is not clear as yet to where this work is to be undertaken; and DECC has recently proposed changes to the ECO as well as to the Green Deal voucher system. A case therefore of wait and see…