Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 11 October 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Retrofitting Schemes: Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland

Mr. Brian O'Mahony:

We have the consumer-facing individual energy grant scheme, namely, the better energy homes scheme. The homeowner can choose what he or she wants to do. He or she can choose to do one measure or many. At the other end of the spectrum is the one-stop shop we mentioned, under which we want homes to reach B2 or better. People have to carry out many measures to get to that uplift. We also have community schemes. We took the approach mentioned by the Deputy in the midlands scheme. We tried to work with local authorities to upgrade homes in an area-based or aggregated approach. The programme concludes this year. We have not completed the scheme, but at this stage we can say there were challenges during Covid in terms of completing the homes. There are also issues around getting into estates to generate interest with homeowners. The community energy grant scheme or the better energy community scheme-----