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<p>The Government is committed to help all consumers – both households and businesses
– to reduce their energy usage, taking control of their bills and helping us meet
our clean growth ambitions.</p><p> </p><p>In our Clean Growth Strategy, we set out
our aspiration to upgrade as many homes as possible to an Energy Performance Certificate
Band C by 2035, where practical, cost effective and affordable. We have taken a number
of steps to deliver this aim: this year, we launched the digitally-led Simple Energy
Advice service to provide impartial, tailored advice on how homeowners can cut energy
bills and make their homes greener, and also launched a new quality mark, through
Trustmark, to help give consumers confidence in the quality of the measures being
installed in their homes. And, in April 2018, we introduced new legislation requiring
landlords of both residential and commercial buildings to improve their properties
to Energy Performance Certificate Band E or higher. We will also shortly publish an
action plan on building the market for energy efficiency, outlining a range of market-based
measures in line with this aspiration.</p><p> </p><p>Alongside this, the Energy Company
Obligation obligates the larger energy suppliers to install energy efficiency and
heating measures to people’s homes to help reduce their energy use. Since January
2013, the scheme has delivered over 2.4 million improvements in around 1.9m homes.
It is funded at £640m per year and this level of support will continue to 2028, meaning
the Government will drive more than £6 billion of investment in domestic energy efficiency
over the next ten years.</p><p> </p><p>The Clean Growth Strategy also set out our
ambition to enable business consumers to reduce their energy usage by improving energy
efficiency by at least 20% by 2030. We have introduced a more streamlined energy and
carbon reporting framework to help businesses reduce their carbon emissions and associated
energy costs. We have also launched a new £18 million Industrial Heat Recovery Support
Programme supporting the recovery and re-use of industrial waste heat, and committed
£8.8 million to promote innovative approaches to energy management using smart meters.
We also announced at Budget 2018 up to £315m for an Industrial Energy Transformation
Fund to support businesses with high energy use to invest in energy efficiency and
decarbonisation measures, and that we would bring forward proposals on a new energy
efficiency scheme for small and medium sized enterprises.</p>
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