8000 homes insulated in 8 weeks

Latest figures show over 8000 New Zealand homes have been retrofitted in the first eight weeks of the government's insulation scheme.

Energy and Resources Minister, Gerry Brownlee, says he's delighted with the latest data which shows both the popularity of the government scheme and the delivery being performed by EECA.

"While the first month's operation indicated this scheme is popular, the second month shows a significant step-up in the number of homes being retrofitted.

"In the month of August 4,889 homes had insulation and/or heaters installed, which is a solid increase on the 3,282 homes in July. It means in total 8,171 homes have been retrofitted in the first two months" said Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee.

"The government committed spending $323 million over four years to insulate 180 thousand homes, so I have to say we won't have any difficulty achieving that target."

"Having retrofitted over 8 thousand homes in just eight weeks is impressive, bearing in mind we are at the early stages and EECA is still gearing-up by accrediting more providers," said Mr Brownlee.

"Its also pleasing to see who is taking up the scheme, the figures show that 57% of those who had their houses retrofitted in August were low income earners, the other 47% were general income homes."

"What we are seeing here is a clear trend of low to middle income New Zealanders embracing the scheme with third party funding working well and a strong appetite for councils, banks and power companies to be funders as well."

"I have seen the results of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development online survey on the scheme and obviously it confirms what we already know, this scheme is very popular."

"However I think the conclusion that high income earners are more likely to apply for the scheme than middle income earners can't be sustained. I gather only a few high income earners participated in the online survey. It also runs against what is actually happening out there in the two months of operation," said Mr Brownlee.