The UK retrofit industry: what does the future hold next?

The Energy Efficiency Retrofitting Services (EERS) sector has over the past three years undergone unprecedented change. Firstly, the introduction of the Green Deal, saw the provision of retrofit activity and financing of national domestic energy efficiency measures placed in the hands of a retrofit industry, which had previously been accustomed to government financial and administrative assistance. Secondly, when the implementation of the Green Deal failed, with limited uptake and unattractive finance arrangements, the EERS sector, was left without any policy provision to enable increased levels of retrofit.

Furthermore, this uncertainty in government assistance was compounded by the lack of long term government planning, now that the UK’s process of departing from the EU market has commenced. Taking forward these issues with the limiting level of trade being completed by the sector, the proposed study will investigate areas that are particularly in need of development to enable UK housing stock carbon saving, economic growth, and increases in employment opportunities. These areas will identify routes to ensure the EERS sector of the future (post-Brexit) is operating to a higher capacity and completing a greater level of retrofit projects, without the need for extensive government support.

A review of success/failure of the UK’s Green Deal policy including the lessons learnt and various policies/approaches that have been used to fund the refurbishment of dwellings elsewhere (e.g. Europe) will be carried out. Based on an appraisal of what works in terms of policy interventions, the PhD will create a hierarchy of issues with the present situation in order to distil down suggestions of future policy pathways. These suggestions will then be applied in a market research style to different EERS sector members (suppliers, installers, assessors, retrofit advisors/consultants….), to gain feedback as to their suitability in relation to the particular concerns in the UK housing/building stock. The research will also bring to light participants’ predictions as to what effects could be resultant from the suggested policy changes. To obtain increased reliability of results EERS sector practitioners will be brought together with policy makers to provide a useful strategy to appreciate which policy suggestions would be best implemented to provide maximum impact and increase in retrofit rates. The outcomes of this work will have the potential to influence policy design. The project fits in nicely with one of the key foundations of productivity ‘Infrastructure’ identified in the UK’s new Industrial Strategy: building a Britain fit for the future.