Published: 24/11/2022 By Alex Parish
Mortgage lenders now funded to help create energy efficiency improvement productsThe BEIS (the department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has recently launched a new £20m fund to help the markets choice of affordable green finance products to reduce energy consumption, although the funding is not available to residential homeowners. It is in place to be used to support lenders and additional providers to test and trail new green finance products that in turn will help homeowners.
This potentially will help a wide range of homeowners, (including landlords) overcome the costs of home improvements to reduce the energy consumption of a property. Additionally, it should help consumers further understand the benefits about green finance and the ways homeowners can make properties more energy efficient and ultimately cheaper to run.
The investment is part of efforts towards making as many homes as energy efficient as possible, with view of helping improve the energy rating of property measured by an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate. Efforts are being focused to make as many properties as possible a Band C by 2035. This is coupled with the announcement earlier this year of a £450m scheme to help with the upgrading of boilers to greener alternatives.
What is an EPC rating?
An EPC stands for Energy Performance Certificate, which measures the energy performance of a property, how efficient it is, what heat lost is incurred etc, ratings range from A (the most efficient) to G (least efficient), this measured on the type of property, construction and heating system installed and so on. The EPC’s will stay valid on a property for 10 years, no matter how many homeowners in this time.
Recent research has shown the houses with an EPC rating of a C can sell for approx.. 5% more. The average EPC rating in the UK is a D.