Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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84. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the status of the progress of the national retrofitting programme. [45689/22]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The National Retrofit Plan, which was published last year as part of the Climate Action Plan 2021 is designed to address barriers to energy efficiency investments in four key areas: driving demand and activity; financing and funding; supply chain, skills and standards; and governance.

Earlier this year in February, Government announced an enhanced package of measures to support the uptake of home energy upgrades.

- A new National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme providing increased grant levels of up to 50% of the cost of a typical deep retrofit to a B2 BER standard.

- Establishment of a network of registered One Stop Shops to offer a start-to-finish project management service, including access to financing, for home energy upgrades.

- A significant increase in the number of free energy upgrades provided to those at risk of energy poverty alongside changes to the operation of the Warmer Homes Scheme. This includes ensuring the Scheme prioritises those in the worst performing homes first and opening the Scheme for homeowner ‘revisits’ thereby allowing them apply for deeper energy upgrade measures now available under the scheme.

- A special enhanced grant rate, equivalent to 80% of the typical cost, for attic and cavity wall insulation has also been introduced for all households. This will help to urgently reduce energy use as part of the Government’s response to current exceptionally high energy prices.

Since then, demand across the SEAI retrofit schemes has been exceptionally high with a very significant increase in the number of applications, year to date when compared to the same period in 2021. This strong pipeline of projects is translating into delivery.

This year there is a target to complete almost 27,000 home energy upgrades, including over 8,600 homes to a BER of B2. This compares to output of 15,500 upgrades last year. Figures provided by the SEAI show that to the end of August 13,406 homes have been completed across the residential energy efficiency schemes and of these, 4,234 have been upgraded to a post works Building Energy Rating (BER) of B2 or better.

The number of free upgrades provided under the Warmer Homes Scheme each month has more than doubled versus last year. Of the overall home completions, above, 2,642 homes have been completed under the Warmer Homes Scheme, and of these 86 have been upgraded to a post works Building Energy Rating (BER) of B2 or better.

Under the National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme, 11 One Stop Shops have been registered with a 12^thOSS expected shortly. SEAI continues to support a number of other organisations through the registration process.