Sowerby Bridge and Todmorden wards are on the Department of Energy & Climate Change list of areas where households and social housing landlords will be eligible for Carbon Saving Community Obligation Support under the upcoming Green Deal. This means that households won’t have to repay the full costs of installing energy saving measures.

A possible example of how this could work is the Freedom from Fuel Poverty project in Somerset, where Bath and North East Somerset Council free solid wall insulation, solar hot water or solar photovoltaic systems to people living in fuel poverty.

Under the Green Deal, householders won’t have to pay upfront for installing energy saving measures, but they will have to repay the installation costs out of their energy bills, from the savings they make through using less energy. But low income households will probably not be able to reduce energy bills enough to repay the costs of the energy saving measures, because their initial energy use is likely to be low anyway. This is the reason for  making funding available through the Carbon Saving Community Obligation Support.

A wide range of measures including loft, cavity wall and solid wall insulation will be eligible for the funding, which is provided under the Energy Company Obligation (ECO). The ECO requires the Big Six energy companies to subsidise carbon saving measures for low income households, and expensive measures like solid wall insulation.

Since I posted this information,  an Energy Royd reader has queried,

“Surely all households on low income will be eligible for the ECO subsidies, not just those in places like Sowerby Bridge and Todmorden that are on [this] list?”

An extra 100,000 low income households to benefit from ECO funding each year

A Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) press release, about the next government steps for the Green Deal, refers to the Carbon saving community obligation:

“An increased focus on poorer areas should see an extra 100,000 households in low income areas benefitting each year, compared to our original proposals, bringing the total number of low income households and those in low income areas assisted to around 230,000 a year.”

This does sound as if the Carbon saving community obligation is an addition to the original proposal, that individual low income households will be eligible for ECO funding. And the DECC Green Deal press officer confirms that

“the funding from ECO will be available to low income/fuel poor households outside the designated CSCO areas.”