The government’s pay-as-you-save scheme – the Green Deal – could be re-targeted at UK businesses in future, according to sources at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

“There is scope for shifting the focus towards the non-domestic sector,” a source at DECC told Energy Demand. “So far, the government has not wanted to focus on non-domestic, but there are opportunities for industry to make significant energy savings.”

Green Deal Shift to Business Imminent?

A shift in emphasis from householders to businesses could happen over the next few months, the source said.

The Green Deal offers energy efficiency building improvements, such as insulation, energy efficient boilers and renewable generation, free of any upfront costs.  The capital is recouped via savings made in the customer’s energy bills.

The scheme, due to be rolled out later this month, is open to both householders and business, but the government has so far been more interested in targeting the scheme at the residential sector – part of an effort to reduce the carbon emissions of the UK’s ageing housing stock. A £3 million marketing budget has been allocated exclusively for marketing the Green Deal to householders.

The government has apparently been put off marketing the scheme to businesses because the ownership structure of commercial buildings is often more complex than residential buildings – particularly in the case of large corporates which lease their premises – and because the upfront costs of upgrading a large commercial building will be significantly more than those involved in upgrading a domestic property.

A spokesman for DECC said: “There is a general consensus that the domestic sector will develop first and fastest, so we focusing our efforts there.”

Green Deal Advisors Planning to Target Businesses

The news comes as it emerged that many of the installers and Green Deal advisors were planning to market the Green Deal at businesses anyway. “A lot of people are looking to do both domestic and non-domestic services, they just have not been explicit about those plans,” a government official told reporters last week.

However, in an interview with Energy Demand this week, Pascal Mittermaier, who heads up the sustainability team for the owners of Bluewater shopping centre, criticised the UK government for failing to lay out exactly how it planned to incentivise UK businesses to tackle energy efficiency issues.

“There’s a lack of clarity,” he said. “The Green Deal is an example of this. There are so many unanswered questions about how that will actually work. We’ve lost a bit of the green momentum.”