ECO4 is all about providing security. For customers, this means energy security, financial security, and that feeling of safety and comfort only a lovely warm home can offer. For installers, and other groups of people involved in the ECO4 process, this should mean employment security and industry stability, as any policy-led, critical, long-term government scheme should.
Billions are being spent globally on the “energy transition” – the shift from fossil fuels to renewables. The pace of the shift has been exacerbated by well documented and discussed global pressures, but is driven by the (now) almost global acceptance by most governments that climate change is real, and Net Zero is important. New technology companies have sprouted up everywhere, with the US, China, Europe, Australia and the UK all wanting to be seen as global leaders.
As with any mass roll out of new technology, skills need to be trained and developed. Every country is crying out for experienced solar installers, heat pump engineers, and retrofit assessors and co-ordinators.
With funding coming straight from the UK’s largest energy companies, strong bipartisan government support, and with a 280 page document to guide ECO4 delivery process and standards, what could possibly go wrong…….?
We are now seeing something quite bizarre: sizable, well established, reputable Renewables Installers supporting the very industry the UK government is desperate to grow, are closing. They have no money. Staff are being let go. The security that should exist in an growing, critical industry is non-existent.
Adding to this, an alarming number of people are taking to social media to complain about ECO4. Facebook groups initially set up set up to help people navigate and get the best out of ECO4 are now full of ECO4 customers begging for help: after months of process and waiting, they have been approved for ECO4 funding, only to have that funding cut, or worse, their work has started and then funding has been pulled, leaving them with half-installed measures, desperate for some clarity.
How exactly has this been allowed to happen?
ECO4 gives funders (energy companies and their Managing Agents) the ability, the power, to move the goal posts at any point in time they see fit. Installers take on work, and spend 10’s of £1000’s of equipment to install to approved customers based on the goal posts being straight ahead of them. By the time the work has started though, the goal posts have halved in size and moved to the left. By the time the work is finished, and they are finally able to request payment for their work, the goals are to the right, and are now triangular. This is the unacceptable world of ECO4.
How exactly has this been allowed to happen?
ECO4 gives funders (energy companies and their Managing Agents) the ability, the power, to move the goal posts at any point in time they see fit. Installers take on work, and spend 10’s of £1000’s of equipment to install to approved customers based on the goal posts being straight ahead of them. By the time the work has started though, the goal posts have halved in size and moved to the left. By the time the work is finished, and they are finally able to request payment for their work, the goals are to the right, and are now triangular. This is the unacceptable world of ECO4.
For more on this topic, please see our LinkedIn post, and the conversation it is generating in the industry.
