National Retrofit Plan

The National Retrofit Plan, which was published as part of Climate Action Plan 2021, sets out how the government will deliver on our retrofit targets. The Plan is designed to address barriers to retrofit across four key pillars: driving demand and activity; financing and funding; supply chain, skills and standards; and governance. For each pillar, barriers were identified and time-bound policies, measures and actions were put in place to address them. The initiatives in the Plan were guided by a number of key principles:

• fairness – ensuring fairness to all and supporting a just transition
• universality – covering all housing types and consumer segments/income deciles
• customer-centric – designing customer centric solutions to reduce the costs and hassle, making the process easier for those investing in retrofit
• cost-optimal – encouraging retrofits to cost-optimal level and maximising emissions abatement
• industry-led – stimulating and supporting industry confidence to invest, grow and take on more workers

The National Retrofit Plan commits to the establishment of a cross-departmental steering group, chaired by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. This Group will be established in Q1 2022 and will oversee and monitor progress against our national targets and develop new initiatives as required.

The government has approved a package of supports to make it easier and more affordable for homeowners to undertake home energy upgrades, for warmer, healthier and more comfortable homes, with lower energy bills. The measures address barriers to undertaking energy upgrades (retrofits) reported by homeowners and those working in the industry. They also reflect the step-change needed – in pace and scale of delivery – to achieve our target of 500,000 home energy upgrades, to B2 Building Energy Rating (BER) standard, by 2030.

The changes represent an important step in delivery of the National Retrofit Plan, which identifies a range of measures aimed at driving demand for retrofit, expanding the size and capacity of the supply chain, as well as making retrofits more affordable.

The key measures include:

• a new National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme providing increased grant levels of up to 50% of the cost of a typical deep retrofit to a B2 BER standard (up from 30%-35% grants currently)
• One Stop Shops to offer a hassle-free, start-to-finish project management service, including access to financing, for home energy upgrades
• a significant increase in the number of free energy upgrades for those at risk of energy poverty (400 per month – up from an average of 177 per month in 2021)
• a special enhanced grant rate, equivalent to 80% of the typical cost, for attic and cavity wall insulation for all households, to urgently reduce energy use as part of the government’s response to current exceptionally high energy prices
• an Exchequer investment of €8 billion to 2030 will enable the supply chain to scale up, creating thousands of high quality jobs and delivering on this critical national objective

The Schemes will be administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).