Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, pursuant to the Oral Answer of 6 November 2014, Official Report, column 955, on off-grid gas customers, what estimate his Department has made of the number of affordable warmth measures under the Energy Company Obligation which have been delivered in off-grid gas areas.

We do not collect information on the total number of households in ‘off gas grid areas’ that have benefited from Affordable Warmth measures. The percentage of households that benefited from Affordable Warmth measures whose primary fuel type was not mains gas up to 30 June 2014 was 1.1%. However, this is not an indicator of whether households were in an ‘off gas grid area’.

The monthly Green Deal/Energy Company Obligation (ECO) statistical release published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change presents the number of measures installed under the rural sub-obligation of the Carbon Saving Communities Obligation (CSCO) strand of ECO which will include areas that are off-grid. The latest release was published on 20 November:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/green-deal-and-energy-company-obligation-eco-monthly-statistics-november-2014

This shows that suppliers have installed 23,400 measures which Ofgem estimates will satisfy over half of their targets under the simplified scheme, up from 2% (834 measures) just five months earlier.

As part of the new ECO Order for the period up until 2017, which is currently proceeding through Parliament, we have created incentives for energy suppliers to delivery more ECO measures in non-gas fuelled homes. We estimate this could increase delivery to non-gas households to as much as 30% by 2017.