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The Green Deal aims to improve the energy-efficiency of homes and businesses by allowing energy improvements to be installed at no upfront cost. Instead, you pay for the improvements over time through your electricity bill. The repayments cannot exceed the amount you are expected to save on energy costs, so there should be no increase in your bills as a result of taking out a Green Deal Plan.
A Green Deal Plan is linked to the property, not to any individual: if you move out, the next bill-payer will become responsible for the repayments. This means that you can safely make improvements without tying yourself to the property.
All properties are eligible for the Green Deal, regardless of whether they are owned or rented. And credit check thresholds are expected to be much lower than average for Green Deal finance (source: Green Deal Finance Company), meaning that the Green Deal should be accessible to most.
The Green Deal is a Government-led initiative that aims to retrofit 14 million homes by 2020, cutting CO?emissions by 29% in housing and 13% in workplaces (source DECC). It is a core part of the Energy Act 2011, enacted on 18th October 2011.
The Green Deal is a great opportunity for homeowners, tenants and businesses to improve the energy-efficiency of their property and cut their running costs, while contributing to a ‘greener’ future for the UK.
During a Green Deal assessment, a Green Deal Advisor will determine which measures are Green Deal eligible and work with you to decide which are the most suitable for your property.
From January 2013 – you can obtain Green Deal finance.
In order to access the Green Deal for your property, you must have a Green Deal assessment undertaken by a qualified Green Deal Advisors at Rutland Energy Assessors Limited working for a certified Green Deal Advice Service. The assessment will identify improvement measures that are suitable for the property, highlighting measures that will be eligible for the Green Deal and/or ECO, and the Advisor will agree a suitable package of measures with you. (In rental properties, both the landlord and tenant’s permission are required before a Green Deal assessment can be carried out.)
You can then find a Green Deal Provider to arrange a Green Deal Plan. We have links with Green Deal Providers, and may even be able to provide an on-the-spot Green Deal quotation. If an Advisor is working with a specific Green Deal Provider they will inform you of this, and declare any commission they might receive.
A quotation for the agreed package of measures, including products and labour.
An agreed repayment schedule. The repayments cannot exceed the predicted savings, and the full term of the plan cannot exceed 25 years. Once the Green Deal Plan is accepted, a contract is in place between the Green Deal Provider and the current bill-payer, which will be transferred to any subsequent bill-payers.
The measures will then be installed by a certified Green Deal Installer. Green Deal Assessments can only be delivered by a certified Green Deal Advisor, and any improvements must be carried out by certified Green Deal Installers. This will give consumers confidence that the advice received is from reliable and accredited sources, and that the installed measures are quality-assured and will deliver genuine CO2 and energy savings.
The Green Deal charges are attached to the electricity bill for the property and collected by the energy supplier on the Green Deal Provider’s behalf. If you move out, the responsibility for repayments will transfer to the next bill-payer, who will benefit from the energy savings due to the improvement.
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