Apply for free insulation to make your home warmer this winter
With autumn approaching, Hackney households are being urged to apply for free home insulation from Hackney Light and Power, the Council’s publicly-owned energy services company.
Hackney’s Green Homes programme is the first borough-wide initiative in London to offer thermal efficiency measures to privately-owned and rented homes, including cavity and loft insulation
This could lower energy bills for thousands of local residents,significantly reduce the gases produced heating homes which contribute to the climate emergency, and help landlords comply with the latest energy efficiency rules.
From April 2020, new government regulations required all private landlords to ensure any home they let has a minimum Band ‘E’ energy rating.The Council wants to help landlords of Hackney’s 34,000 privately rented homes make improvements to meet the new energy efficiency standards and avoid enforcement action.
The Council has already received over 90 applications for the Hackney Green Homes programme since it launched in February. Home visits to assess eligibility have now resumed, with staff following social distancing guidelines when visiting.
Residents can also apply to trial innovative new renewable heating upgrades, such as hydrogen fuel-cell boilers and air-to-air heat pumps to explore the potential of such technologies to reduce the environmental impact of heating, which the Committee on Climate Change has been clear is essential if national commitments to net zero emissions are to be met.
Hackney Light and Power will play a key role in delivering the Council’s ambitious decarbonisation targets set out in the climate emergency motion passed at Full Council in June 2019 - which will see the Council deliver a 45% reduction in carbon emissions relative to 2010 levels across all its functions by 2030, and deliver net zero emissions by 2040, in line with the most ambitious reductions set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Hackney Light and Power’s Green Homes programme will help residents to lower their bills and tackle the climate emergency by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
It forms part of our commitment to urgent decarbonisation across the Council’s functions - including through cleaning up our vehicle fleet, delivering the largest urban tree planting programme in the country, decarbonising the waste system, and reducing car-use by transforming our neighbourhoods and making it safer for people to walk and cycle.
It’s only by robust action like this that we’ll meet our commitment to net zero emissions by 2040 and demonstrate that urgent action to tackle the climate emergency is not only necessary, but possible.