Over 9,500 Green Deal assessments were lodged in April according to the latest statistics released by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
The total number of Green Deal assessments completed under the scheme has now hit 18,816. The statistics show that the scheme continues to gather pace, with a 27% rise in assessments from March to April 2013.
Energy and climate change minister, Greg Barker, commented: “The Green Deal market is showing healthy signs of growth since its launch at the end of January with 18,816 Green Deal assessments carried out by the end of April. That’s over double the amount of assessments undertaken by the end of March.
“It’s still early days for this long term initiative, but this is a clear sign of growing interest from consumers, with people keen to improve the efficiency of their homes to make them warmer and help save money on bills.
“As the number of householders getting on board continues to rise, the number of businesses offering Green Deal services is also building momentum. At the end of April there were 55 authorised Green Deal providers, 1,274 individuals registered to carry out assessments and 942 organisations signed up to carry out installations. It’s fantastic to see householders and businesses cottoning on to the benefits and rising to the challenge.”
Richard Griffiths, policy and campaigns consultant at the UK Green Building Council, added: “As we saw a month ago, the number of Green Deal assessments continues to grow and that is encouraging. But we are now reaching the point where we must surely start to see a significant number of these turn into Green Deal plans. Early reports suggest that this is starting to happen, but not yet at a rate commensurate with the challenge we face in retrofitting the UK’s homes.”
However, Griffiths warned: “The real test will come in a couple of months’ time, when the DECC funded assessments have worked through the system.
“Will the rate of assessments we have seen so far be maintained, and can we be hopeful that a reasonable proportion of those who received free assessments will turn out to be genuinely serious customers for the scheme?
“If the answer turns out to be ‘no’ to either of these questions, the government should commit to acting on the lessons learned from the first six months and step in to introduce measures to drive demand for retrofit.”