finance - passivehouseplus.co.uk

Ireland and the European Investment Bank (EIB) today reached an agreement that paves the way for government-backed, low-interest home energy upgrade loans. The agreement marks a major milestone in the development of the loan scheme which will be underpinned by resources from the EIB Group.

Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI) has launched a new green loan product offering a discount of up to 0.5 per cent on loans to home builders for developments certified with the Irish Green Building Council's Home Performance Index.

For anyone interested in climate action, the government’s commitment to halve Ireland’s emissions by 2030 and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 was one of the highlights of the year. But we won’t reach this objective focusing exclusively on energy efficiency — we must turn our attention to cutting embodied carbon too, and this wil be a major focus of the Irish Green Building Council's Better Homes conference next Friday, 27 November. 

An Post has announced the launch of a new "green hub" providing end-to-end project management and money-saving advice for all levels of home retrofitting, along with a low-cost loan rate. The state-owned company said that this one-stop-shop approach will cover loan-only or full retrofit services, from initial home assessments to completed works, along with SEAI grant application and payment process.

New research published by the Passivhaus Trust has shown that the real-terms cost of building to the passive house standard has fallen since the previous study four years ago.

Bank of Ireland has unveiled a suite of green loans and interest rates to encourage home owners and businesses to be more energy efficient. The new initiatives include a green interest rate discount for borrowers buying or building energy efficient homes, and a green home improvement loan for energy efficiency retrofits. Businesses, including farmers, will also be able to access reduced interest rates for investment in energy saving improvements.

Leading low energy retrofit contractor Encon has teamed up with Waterford Credit Union to offer low interest loans to anyone thinking undertaking of a home energy upgrade, in a bid to help develop the retrofit market in the region.

The government is aiming to energy upgrade one million buildings by 2020, but huge investment will be needed to reach that goal as finance expert Jack O’Keeffe of Larchmont Consulting explains