National Energy Action reveals in an exclusive report that progress on energy efficiency could be more active and better targeted at fuel-poor households.

According to industry calculations, the government’s home insulation programme would require 190 years to improve the energy efficiency of the UK’s housing stock and 300 years to satisfy the government’s targets for reducing fuel poverty.

Members of the Great British Insulation Scheme, which seeks to insulate 300,000 homes annually for the next three years, are concerned that the plan doesn’t go far enough to reach the 19 million UK homes requiring better insulation.

The rate of energy efficiency enhancements is twenty times lower than it was under the previous Labour government.

The new scheme, introduced last week as part of a comprehensive energy security strategy, would take nearly 200 years to reach the homes needing upgrades.

According to the fuel poverty charity National Energy Action, the programme would take another century to achieve the government’s targets for improving the energy efficiency of fuel-poor homes in England.

“We simply don’t have that much time to act,” stated Jason Longhurst, chairman of the UK Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Matt Copeland at National Energy Action, stated that progress on energy efficiency in the United Kingdom has been “much too slow for a decade” and that the new initiative is “not well targeted at fuel-poor households, which require the most assistance with their bills.”

He added, “According to our analysis of England’s most recent fuel poverty statistics, the government will now take 300 years to reach its statutory goal of bringing all fuel-poor homes to EPC C – well past the 2030 deadline.”

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson stated, “Significant progress is being made to insulate homes”.

By rendering homes more energy-efficient, home insulation grants are essential to the UK’s plan to achieve a carbon-neutral economy by 2050. 

They would also provide households with immediate benefits by making homes warmer and reducing energy expenditures. In recent years, however, the rate of home energy efficiency upgrades has slowed, leaving nearly two-thirds of UK homes needing improved insulation.

The number of energy efficiency installations in the UK, such as insulating lofts and cavity walls, reached a peak of 2.3 million in 2012, but under a Conservative government, efficiency programmes were cut, resulting in a decline in household improvements. By 2021, annual installations had decreased by 96% to less than 100,000.

Ed Miliband accused the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, of neglecting to act despite the sharp increase in residential energy bills due to skyrocketing market prices following the conflict in Ukraine.

“One of the reasons why energy bills are so high is the disastrous record of the Conservatives in heating our homes,” Energy efficiency rates are now twenty times lower than they were under the previous Labour administration, but Rishi Sunak refuses to act,” he said.

The Labour Party has proposed a large-scale energy efficiency initiative to ensure that all 27 million residences in the United Kingdom are adequately insulated. If elected, Labour would seek to upgrade the energy efficiency of 2 million households in the first year of a £60 billion, 10-year programme that could save households £400 annually on utility bills.

The party asserts that by the decade’s end, 450,000 jobs would be generated by installing energy-saving measures such as loft insulation, double-glazing, and renewable and low-carbon technologies.

Miliband stated, “Labour’s warm homes plan would upgrade the 19 million homes that require it, reducing energy costs and creating thousands of good jobs for electricians and engineers across the country.”

According to a government spokesperson, the Great British Insulation Scheme would support installing energy efficiency measures in approximately 300,000 households. 

It is in addition to the £6.6 billion we’ve committed in this parliament and the additional £6 billion we’ll invest through 2028 to help reduce emissions from residential buildings.”