Date Published 20 January 2023
An all party and influential committee of MPs says the UK should be put on a war footing to improve the energy efficiency of homes.
The Environmental Audit Committee is calling for 'a national mobilisation' to reduce household energy bills, cut climate changing emissions and reduce reliance on fossil fuel imports. And it says despite the government's Energy Price Guarantee, the government has missed an opportunity to accelerate energy efficiency installations in the warmer months of 2022.
It continues that in England alone, over 13m or 59 per cent of homes are below EPC level C. The number of UK energy efficiency installations peaked in 2012 at 2.3m, yet in 2021 fewer than 100,000 upgrades were installed.
The committee is calling for at least one million energy efficiency installations a year by 2025, with an ambitious target of 2.5m properties a year by the end of the decade.
Such an effort would require funding, including investment in people to deliver this step change. A new Energy Efficiency Taskforce should be directed to estimate the levels of funding and workforce skills which will be needed and the MPs say a proportion of the windfall tax on energy companies should be allocated immediately to help fund energy efficiency improvements.
Other changes demanded by the committee include a greater focus on the potential of on shore wind and tidal energy, ending the UK's reliance on fossil fuels, and setting a clear date for ending new oil and gas licensing franchises. The MPs are also calling for faster action from the oil and gas sector to reduce its operational emissions produced during oil and gas extraction.
