The Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) published a report giving details of the almost 27,200 home energy upgrades supported through Government funded SEAI grant schemes in 2022. This is the first of a regular planned quarterly update on progress against the Climate Action Plan target to upgrade 500,000 homes to BER B2 or better by 2030.

Among the key insights in the report are:

• 27,199 property upgrades were completed in 2022, up almost 80% on the previous year.
• Of these upgrades, 4.438 were fully funded upgrades for low-income households, up 85% year on year.
• 437 Approved Housing Body homes were supported under the One-Stop-Shop Scheme and an additional 95 low-income houses were supported under the Community Energy Grants Scheme.
• Roof and cavity wall insulation measures, the simplest thing you can do to maintain heat in your home, grew by 107% between 2021 and 2022.
• The number of homes upgraded to a BER B2 almost doubled, to 8,481.
• SEAI processed more than 50,000 grant applications across all schemes in 2022 up 140% on 2021.
• SEAI registered 12 One Stop Shop service providers, all of whom commenced operations.
• Capital expenditure on the national retrofit programme was €188 million in 2022, up 90% on 2021.
• 40.27kt CO2 emissions savings in 2022, an improvement of more than 80% on 2021.

Minister Ryan said, “the National Residential Retrofit Plan is extremely ambitious and it has to be. Our aim is to retrofit 500,000 homes to a BER rate of B2 and install 400,000 heat pumps in existing homes by 2030, to make them warmer, healthier, more cost efficient and better for our environment. The message from the most recent IPCC report on climate is clear. We need to go further and faster in tackling climate change. However, this same report says that we have the solutions, including the solutions to implement better energy efficiency which retrofitting is all about. Momentum in retrofit is building.”

“SEAI supported 15,000 home energy upgrades in 2021, 27,200 last year and will deliver 37,000 this year. I have confidence we will meet this target given the strong pipeline of work in place. We have everything to gain by ramping up year on year – better homes, cheaper bills and less use of polluting and climate damaging fossil fuels. I particularly welcome the delivery of almost 4,450 fully funded upgrades for households at risk of energy poverty. These energy upgrades are a crucial support for low-income households during this period of high energy bills.”

Dr Ciaran Byrne, Director of National Retrofit at SEAI said, “overall, significant delivery targets for home energy upgrades were achieved last year. It is evident from this report that momentum in applications and delivery of home upgrades built steadily through the year. However, the factors driving uptake of home energy upgrades including increased grant levels, One Stop Shop service launch, cost of living and energy crises, were somewhat offset by the impacts of inflation, labour shortages and supply chain delays on contractors’ ability to capitalise on the demand. This led to a situation where, for much of the year, there was an unmet demand for home energy upgrades. The One Stop Shop and contractor base is continuing to scale up to meet this burgeoning demand. Construction sector inflation and material supply chain constraints are likely to remain significant risks in the medium term.”

Source: SEAI