An estimated 25% of a fund designed to help the poorest stay warm in their homes remained unspent at the end of March. Changing criteria for the Warm Front scheme and a lack of publicity both contributed to the fund not being claimed and fuel-poor households losing out according to the charity National Energy Action (NEA).

Warm Front, which closed at the end of March, provided heating and insulation improvements worth up to £6000 to households on certain income-related benefits living in properties that were poorly insulated and/or did not have a working central heating system. New, more rigorous criteria was applied in April 2011 and applications dropped off.

NEA and Consumer Focus ran a late joint awareness raising campaign towards the end of the schemes life to try to rectify the situation and this saw weekly applications to the scheme increase by 150%. The unspent money will be absorbed back into the treasury.

Are you a qualified energy assessor or home inspector and interested in securing work under the forthcoming Green Deal? If so, Asset Skills wants to hear from you. Asset Skills has received £1 million from the government to ensure that there are at least 1000 qualified Green Deal Advisors ready for the launch of the Green Deal. To become one of the first Green Deal Advisors (domestic and non-domestic), energy assessors or home inspectors will need to train for a new qualification, available in July. We want to hear from qualified energy assessors and home inspectors in England, Wales and Scotland who would like to train for the role.

If you are a ‘ready and able learner’ interested in training as a Green Deal Advisor please contact Lucy Radford: greendeal@assetskills.org or 0845 678 2888.

Clean energy technologies are not being deployed quickly enough to tackle climate change, and if we don’t change this we can expect global temperature rises of 6°C by the end of the century according to a new report from the International Energy Agency.

According to Tackling Clean Energy Progress the good news is the use of more ‘mature’ renewables such as onshore wind and solar photovoltaics, has grown over the last decade and in some countries the cost of solar PV has fallen by 75% in three years – proving that rapid change is possible. The bad news is that  most clean energy technologies are not on track to make their required contribution to reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and thereby provide a more secure energy system.

The report recommends promoting energy efficiency, encouraging clean energy techonologies and accelerating energy innovation.

http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,26624,en.html

New research has revealed that the UK’s £12.5 billion renewables industry supports 110,000 jobs across supply chain, and could support 400,000 by 2020.

‘Renewable Energyt: Made In Britain is the first report to quantify and bring together the turnover and employment figures of the entire UK renewables sector. It has been published by the Renewable Energy Association and Innovas.

www.r-e-a.net/resources/rea-publications

Climate Change Minister Greg Barker has signed an agreement with 22 organisations that have pledged to work to become the first Green Deal providers. The organisations that have signed up as pioneer providers include big business, SME's, and community groups, and as Green Deal providers will be offering energy efficiency packages to consumers when the scheme launches later this year.