On the 28th March 2024 the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published the annual report updated to the end of the calendar year 2023 presenting the in depth statistics on the government supported energy efficiency schemes in Great Britain (GB) along with updated estimates of GB insulation levels. 

The current and historical schemes covered include: Energy Company Obligation (ECO), the Green Deal (GD) Framework, Green Homes Grant Vouchers (GHGV), Local Authority Delivery (LAD), Home Upgrade Grant (HUG), Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) and the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS).

Whilst the numbers cover energy efficiency measures in general there are some interesting figures specific to the solid wall insulation industry.
 

General Headline Data

• From 2013 to the end of 2023, around 4.1 million energy efficiency measures were installed in 2.7 million properties in Great Britain through various government support schemes: Energy Company Obligation (ECO), the Green Deal (GD) Framework, Green Homes Grant Vouchers (GHGV), Local Authority Delivery (LAD), Home Upgrade Grant (HUG), Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) and the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS).
• During 2023, around 318,600 energy efficiency measures were installed through these schemes, an increase of 49 per cent compared with 2022.
• However, around 83,500 households were upgraded across all schemes, a decrease of 17 per cent compared with 2022 – this is largely driven by ECO4’s whole-house retrofit approach of multiple installations per household.
• ECO remains the largest energy efficiency scheme. Measures delivered through ECO accounted for 83 per cent of all measures installed in 2023. During 2023, ECO delivered 265,000 measures – an increase of 61 per cent compared to 2022 – as delivery under ECO4 continued to grow, following its start in April 2022 after the closure of ECO3.
• In 2023, 23,600 measures were delivered through SHDF, 20,400 measures through LAD, 5,600 measures through HUG, and 4,000 measures through GBIS.
• At the end of 2023, it is estimated that 15.0 million properties in Great Britain had cavity wall insulation (70 per cent of properties with a cavity wall), 17.3 million had loft insulation (67 per cent of properties with a loft) and 833,000 had solid wall insulation (10 per cent of properties with solid wall).

Household Energy Efficiency Data - Solid Wall Insulation

From the last bullet point above we note that only 10% of solid wall properties have been insulated compared with 70% of cavity walls and 67% of lofts suggesting that solid wall properties are not being insulated in anything like the numbers we need to see.

The charts demonstrate the issue in more detail:

Under ECO the focus seems to be on "Other Heating" (heat pumps) and loft insulation with micro-generation also gaining momentum:



Likewise, the chart detailing measures installed over all schemes to end 2023 shows that only the SHDF is proving effective when it comes to solid wall insulation:


 

Solid Wall Minimum Requirement (SWMR) sub-obligation (ECO)

Under ECO3 suppliers were required to deliver £721m of lifetime bill savings through the Solid Wall Minimum Requirement (SWMR).
Under ECO4 suppliers are required to install the equivalent of 90,000 measures through SWMR. This can only be met through the installation of external, internal or hybrid solid wall insulation (SWI) measures in eligible solid wall premises, whereas under ECO3, solid wall alternative measures which achieved the same bill savings as would been achieved by solid wall insulation were also eligible.
To the end of 2023, around 63,500 solid wall insulation and solid wall alternative measures were delivered under this sub-obligation, with 16,900 measures installed in 2023. 

There's significant regional variation too:



Scotland has, by far the highest rates of solid wall insulation delivery with 22% of solid wall homes now insulated. Compare this to 9% in Wales and just 7% in England and, indeed, the 10 per cent figure for Great Britain as a whole!


 

Estimates of Home Insulation Levels in Great Britain 

Key Headlines show that:

• 7.8 million major professional insulation measures (cavity wall, loft and solid wall) have been installed through ECO and other government supported domestic energy efficiency schemes since 2009.
• Of the estimated 21.3 million homes with cavity walls, 70 per cent have cavity wall insulation4 .
• Of the estimated 25.8 million homes with lofts, 67 per cent have loft insulation.
• Of the estimated 8.5 million homes with solid walls, 10 per cent have solid wall insulation

Through 2023, both retrofit insulation (delivered through Government schemes and new properties built with insulation resulted in the following progress:

• Around 210,800 more homes with cavity wall insulation (a 1.4 per cent increase between the end of December 2022 and December 2023), of which 17,600 were through retrofit and 193,200 through new build;
• Approximately 223,300 more homes with at least 125mm of loft insulation (a 1.3 per cent increase between the end of December 2022 and December 2023), of which 51,000 were through retrofit and 172,400 through new build;
• Around 26,800 more homes with solid wall insulation (a 3.3 per cent increase between the end of December 2022 and December 2023), all of which are assumed to be through retrofit.

What Does This Mean

The data tells us that we need to address the issue of insulating solid wall properties and the only way to do this is with external wall insulation, internal wall insulation or a hybrid mixture of the two. Insulating in these ways is the only manner in which the fabric of the building can be thermally upgraded and this fabric first approach is supported, not just by SWIGA but by INCA and the EWI industry as a whole. The building itself needs to be effectively insulated before other energy efficiency measures and heating systems are installed to prevent energy wastage.

You only have to look at the remaining size of the potential market to understand the nature of the challenge:



The report recognises this:

At the end of December 2023, there were an estimated 8.5 million homes with solid walls in Great Britain. Of these, it is estimated that 833,000 (10 per cent) had solid wall insulation and 7.7 million (90 per cent) were uninsulated.
Prior to 2013, Government schemes focused on insulating homes with cavity walls due to the costs involved with insulating solid wall properties. However, the focus has switched in recent years to harder or more expensive to treat properties due to policies like ECO, including solid wall properties.
Of the remaining insulation potential, it may not be possible to insulate all solid wall properties. Some of these properties are likely to be too costly to treat or to be located within conservation areas, which means that they will never be insulated. 

SWIGA, INCA and the EWI industry as a whole will continue to "encourage" the Government to focus on addressing the issue of insulating the 90% of uninsulated solid wall properties and to support them in any way we can to get the job done!

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