Home

UK opposition party, the Tories have reiterated their plans to improve the energy efficiency of the country’s housing stock if they come to power in the next election.

At the Conservative Party conference yesterday, shadow energy and climate change secretary, Greg Clark repeated their plans to give all homeowners access to an allowance of up to £6500 to undertake energy efficiency improvements.

Homeowners would not receive the cash directly but would be funded to install insulation and other energy saving measures through energy companies or charities, with the costs recouped through energy bills.

A Tory government would also push ahead with new nuclear and 5 GW of coal-fired power stations fitted with carbon capture and storage technology “to keep Britain’s lights on”, said Clark.

The national grid would also be upgraded to cope with the peaks and troughs of demand and energy supply from renewable sources such as wind. The Tories would also like to see the grid extended out to sea to bring online more marine and wind energy capacity.

“The Conservative plans are a small step in the right direction,” says Friends of the Earth’s green homes campaigner Ed Matthew, “but aren’t the huge leap forward that is required.”

More detailed and coherent plans are needed potentially so close to a general election if the energy efficiency of UK homes is to be improved with the urgency that is required.

At last year’s party conference, the Tories unveiled plans to encourage companies support their employees improve the energy efficiency of their homes by allowing the savings to count towards the company’s carbon footprint.

For further information:
www.conservatives.com/
www.foe.org.uk/

Related stories:
Energy efficient homes should be the norm, says UK Conservative Party (16-Apr)
UK opposition launches smart plan for low carbon economy (16-Jan)
UK Conservative Party plan to promote employee energy efficiency (2-Oct 2008)