Quarter of homeowners plan to make energy improvements in next year

Published: 20 Jul 2022, 16:43
By Jonathan Tourino Jacobo

The first option for 61% of renters surveyed for energy efficiency improvements would be solar panels. Image: SolarEdge.

Nearly a quarter of homeowners plan on installing energy efficiency measures in the next year, NatWest and S&P’s Greener Homes Attitude Tracker has found.

The quarterly tracker, which surveys 1,500 people each month, has found that 23% of homeowners would consider themselves ‘a lot more likely’ to take up energy efficiency measures in the coming months as household utility bills spiral.

Younger homeowners were found to be more likely to adopt new energy technologies, with those aged between 18 and 34 twice as likely to install a heat pump or an electric vehicle charger than the UK average.

With more people adopting EVs, homeowners are quickly turning to domestic EV charging points. Nearly 10% of UK homes now have an EV charger installed, double the market share recorded during Q3 2021.

And that figure looks set to soar in the near future, with 40% of homeowners showing an interest in installing an EV charger in the next ten years.

There is also growing interest in rooftop solar PV, the tracker finding that 13% of people surveyed in this tracker would consider a solar installation, up from 5% a year ago.

However those figures improve greatly if renters had a say in energy efficiency improvements made by landlords, with solar PV the most popular energy efficiency option among renters (61%) followed by double glazing (53%) and energy efficient lighting (39%).