The UK Government’s ‘Green Deal’ initiative – a scheme designed to help make energy-saving improvements more accessible to both private homeowners and businesses.

The idea behind the Green Deal is to help customers pay for energy-saving improvements including insulation, heating, hot water, micro-energy generation (such as solar panels) and, most importantly for our customers, glazing. Putting it simply those qualifying will be allowed to pay for the cost of their energy-saving property improvements by savings on their energy bills. This is could obviously be a very attractive prospect for anyone who has previously been put off the idea of improving their property’s energy efficiency with secondary glazing due to the upfront cost.

How does the new ‘Green Deal’ work?

There are four stages to the process: Assessment, finance, installation and repayment. All work must be carried out by companies approved under the scheme.

Interested customers will have an assessment carried out on their property by a certified Green Deal Advisor or Assessor – they will advise what energy-efficient improvements could be made and the likely savings these would generate. They will create a full report for the property owner to consider, including details of what are the most cost-effective options. All assessors and advisors must declare any connection they have with providers.

Once a report has been generated customers are free to approach any registered providers who can arrange for the work to be carried out and financed. Customers are at liberty to visit more than one provider to obtain the best deal. Upon agreement, a contract is signed between you and the provider. This registered firm will then undertake the installation of the improvements.

All registered installers will have been thoroughly vetted to ensure that they comply with the requirements of the Green Deal scheme.

Repayment of the energy-saving home improvements is accomplished by a regular extra charge on your electricity bill. This money is then automatically passed to the provider who carried out the work on your property as a regular repayment.

So is the Green Deal like a loan?

Yes and no! Interest is charged on the amount owed – however, this is fixed for the term of the repayment deal and details will be clearly laid out in a repayment schedule before you sign up.

Secondly, the loan is not held against the person but against the property, it was used for. So if you move then the loan repayments through an extra charge on the electricity bills become payable by the new owner. They in turn though will be benefiting through the savings they will be made through the energy efficiency work already completed.

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