British households will be able to take out soft loans to improve the efficiency of their homes under a proposed new law to fight climate change and cut fuel poverty, the government said on 2 March.

The aim is to overcome the high upfront cost of home refurbishments, for example to insulate lofts, thicken walls and install draught-proof windows, by allowing people to take out long-term loans at subsidised interest rates.

Read the article in EurActiv here

Read also about the announcment from Minister Ed Miliband on 1st February. Households and communities who install generating technologies such as small wind turbines and solar panels will from April be entitled to claim payments for the low carbon electricity they produce. A similar scheme is to be introduced in April 2011 to incentivise low carbon heating technologies. The schemes are designed to bring about a significant increase in the amount of locally produced green energy, as a contribution to the wider shift of the energy mix to low carbon.