The Green Homes Grant Scheme (GHG) was launched in July 2020 by the Chancellor Rishi Sunak, with a focus on improving the energy efficiency of dwellings in England. The scheme will provide £2bn of funding and is split into two main streams;

Core Green Homes Grant Scheme (£1.5bn)

Local Authority Delivery Scheme (£0.5bn)

Core Green Homes Grant Scheme

The government will provide a voucher worth up to £5,000 or £10,000 (for those who are deemed low-income) to help cover the cost of making energy efficient improvements to your home. Improvements could include insulating your home to reduce your energy use or installing low-carbon heating to lower the amount of carbon dioxide your home produces.

Improvements must be completed, and voucher redeemed, by 31 March 2021.

More details are being released still, and it is important all those involved are kept informed. To that end, please keep your eye on BBA, Trustmark and the Government’s social media and websites on a regular basis.

To apply for the voucher, customers must either:

• Own their home (including park homes, long-leaseholders, shared ownership), or
• Be a private or social landlord. In addition,
• The property must be in England to be eligible for the scheme.

Landlords cannot apply for the low-income portion of the scheme. New-build properties that have not previously been occupied are not eligible for the scheme.

The available measures are split into ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ measures.

Primary measures

The voucher must be used to install at least 1 primary measure. This can be an insulation measure and/or a low carbon heating measure.

Insulation measures

The following insulation measures are covered by the voucher:

• solid wall
• underfloor
• cavity wall
• loft
• flat roof
• room-in-roof
• insulating a park home

Low carbon heat measures

The following low carbon heating measures are covered by the voucher:

• air- or ground-source heat pump
• solar thermal (liquid filled flat plate or evacuated tube collectors)
• biomass pellet boilers

Secondary measures

If you install at least 1 primary measure, your voucher can be used to help cover the cost of any of the following secondary measures:

• draught proofing
• double/triple glazing (where replacing single glazed windows)
• secondary glazing (in addition to single glazing)
• external energy efficient doors (replacing single glazed or solid doors installed before 2002)
• heating controls (such as thermostats and smart heating controls)
• hot water tank thermostats and insulation

Green Home Grant – Local Authority Delivery Scheme

£500m worth of funding will be ringfenced for Local Authorities, who will be able to bid for funding to support low-income homes that currently live in homes with an EPC rating of E, F or G. The package will comprise of two elements:

• £200m Local Authority competition
• £300m via Local Energy Hubs in 2020/21 for regional delivery by March 2022

£1.5bn Ambition

The ambition is to spend £1.5bn of the fund on privately owned dwellings by March 31st, which means the measures must be installed by then, and the vouchers redeemed. The aim of the scheme is that measures are installed in approximately 650,000 properties by that date. Some experts feel that this challenging target may result in the scheme being extended. The BBA will keep abreast of any changes to the deadline, and update advice as appropriate.

For consumers to participate in the scheme, they need to apply via the Simple Energy Advice website

For Installers

To operate within the GHG scheme, Installers must have the following in place for each measure they plan to install:

• Trustmark registered – gained through the BBA which covers most of the Insulation measures
• PAS 2030 – gained through the BBA which cover most of the insulation measures
• Products installed must be certified and the BBA recommend the utilisation of BBA Certified products; these come with factory training for installers.

Installers also need to sign-up directly with the scheme. To do that, please visit https://www.gov.uk/register-as-green-homes-grant-installer.

In summary

The Green Homes Grant Scheme is a great initiative and has the full support of BBA Certification in conjunction with our Approved Installers / PAS members, who install quality certified BBA products. We hope that the GHG scheme leads to a further strategic plan for improving the energy efficiency and carbon emissions of the buildings in our country.

Please keep watching the BBA, Trustmark and Government social media andwebsites to keep up to date with scheme details.

If you have any queries, or wish to understand more about becoming BBA certified, get in touch with our Client Services team on clientservices@bbacerts.co.uk