A new report published by Energy Systems Catapult reveals the UK’s Energy Company Obligation scheme (ECO4) is not reaching health-vulnerable people living in cold homes, despite being explicitly designed to help those people most at risk from fuel poverty.
The report, Making ECO Work for Health: Bridging the Gap Between Policy Intent and Delivery Reality, is based on a service trial delivered by Energy Systems Catapult in partnership with ScottishPower. The trial tested the feasibility of using ECO4 to fund retrofits for people whose health conditions are made worse by living in cold homes, using the Catapult’s Warm Home Prescription® model.
The trial confirmed that although ECO4 includes health-related eligibility routes on paper, the reality of delivery excludes many eligible residents due to cost caps, administrative burden, and a delivery model driven by commercial installer priorities.
The report sets out seven key policy reforms to unlock ECO’s potential to deliver for health, decarbonisation and poverty reduction:
Dave Johns, Design Practice Manager at Energy Systems Catapult, said:
“This trial exposed a significant gap between the policy goals of ECO4 and its operational reality. The scheme is failing to support those most at risk from cold homes – not because the need isn’t there, but because the structure of the programme makes it virtually inaccessible to them.
“For government to be successful in using retrofit to support health and tackle fuel poverty, urgent reform is needed to the funding mechanism, delivery model, and metrics.”
Making ECO work for health: Bridging the gap between policy intent and delivery reality
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