"Soon -- just like the utilities who are contracting for clean energy because businesses want to buy it -- builders will start building net-zero houses because their customers ask for those features, and will pay for them."
You'd think so wouldn't you?
The UK government's recent but badly designed Green Deal scheme has totally failed to stimulate interest in energy efficiency amongst homeowners and has served simply to give the big six utilities another mechanism to maintain their control of the market.
Having been heavily involved in a Green Deal Pioneer Places scheme I have first hand knowledge of the background to its failure. The controlling hand of the Big Six was no surprise but the most disappointing thing about the whole experience was just how little value the average householder in this country placed on energy efficiency, despite complaints about fuel bills. All the attention is on the supply side.
As a part of our government-funded scheme we retrofitted two buildings to the highest standards to illustrate what was possible. Local estate agents, when offered the chance to learn about the benefits, were uninterested. This was entirely logical from their perspective as they were only reflecting their customers' interests. One of the two properties was sold recently and attracted a higher price than the pre-retrofit valuation - entirely, we understand, based on the improved cosmetics of the state of the art solid wall insulation!
With today's Sunday papers covering Amber Rudd's intentions to push fracking with the self-serving support of Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos, it should be no surprise that the Tories are running away from their prior commitments to tighter building regulations. Their commitments in Paris later this year will be hollow.
The world (or at least the UK) is upside down on this one!