Green Deal is dead. Recently DECC also eliminated the requirement of GDARs from domestic RHI. Now leaves ECO as the only scheme that uses GDAR to recommend a measure.
Just like with every premature scheme deaths in the past, we would never come to know the financial impact of cancelling the requirements of GDARs. But here are some back of envelop calculations offering just a glimpse of the size of GDAR market.
As per the latest household and energy efficiency statistics released in March 2016 there were 3,988 Green Deal Advisors registered by the end of February 2016 who cumulatively lodged 639,965 GDARs. Now let’s do some basic maths.
Only accredited advisors can lodge a GDAR. On an average a GDA training course costs £1000 to qualified DEAs. Even if we assume that all GDAs were already DEAs at the time of training, they contributed over £3.98 million to the accreditation bodies, City and Guild Register and all other involved organisations. GDAR lodgement fees, including VAT and excluding other charges is around £4.50. At this rate the GDAs have paid £2.88 million. Just these two activities have contributed around £7million since its inception in 2012. Note that this blog presents a very narrow view of the GDAR market; if we add up all other costs such as registration of assessor organisations and Green Deal providers, cost of DEA accreditation, indemnity insurances etc., the final figure may run into billions. It’s a shame that the efforts and money of so many people and organisations were wasted on a scheme that was destined to fail. Unfortunately, it seems the Government is yet to learn the right lessons from this failure.