Interest Free Loans for Home Insulation, Renewables
- Install cavity wall or solid wall insulation and/or loft insulation;
- Install renewable energy systems, such as wind turbines, solar water heating, heat pumps, small scale hydroelectric schemes and wood fuel heating systems;
- Replace old, inefficient boilers.
Loans should be paid back in monthly installments over a maximum of 8 years.
Loans can be combined with grants such as the Energy Saving Scotland home renewables grants and funding from fuel suppliers under the Carbon Emission Reduction Target.
The scheme is managed by the Energy Saving Trust.
Renewable Energy Installation Example: Sanyo CO2 Heat Pump to replace a gas boiler
30% of the installation cost, up to a maximum of £4,000 is eligible for an Energy Saving Scotland home renewable grant and the remaining cost could be covered by an Energy Saving Scotland home loan.
The final piece of the jigsaw is the Renewable Heat Incentive from the UK Government. Consultation on this is taking place at present to be in place by April 2011. In the case of heat pumps, I suspect that this will take the form of a special electricity tariff that will be priced somewhere between the cost of a kilo Watt hour of gas and a kilo Watt hour of electricity.
The savings on running costs between the heat pump and the gas boiler, made more significant due to the Renewable Heat Incentive, could contribute to the monthly repayments of the Energy Saving Scotland home loan.
Interest free loans Submitted by mahall on 9 October 2009 - 6:43am.The BBC had this on their website yesterday too, I noticed. I searched a bit more and found a reference to the Scottish Government publishing their energy efficiency strategy (or whatever it's called), which would include that sort of thing, in December this year. Have they brought it forward? Are these loans available now or not actually until December ? Good news anyway, particularly the extended repayment period.
Mike