The Insulation Council of Australia (ICANZ) has recently called for a renewal of the home insulation scheme, stating that households could save $1.5 billion in heating and cooling costs.
The Insulation Council of Australia (ICANZ) has recently called for a renewal of the federal government’s ill-fated Home Insulation Program, commissioning and releasing a report outlining the potential savings to heating and cooling costs that could be made with such a scheme.
The report claims that by retrofitting ceiling insulation in more than a million households across Australia, around $1.5 billion could be saved in heating and cooling costs – cutting 3.4 million tonnes of carbon emmisions by 2020.
“Buildings represent 23 per cent of all greenhouse gases produced. So they must be part of the government’s attack on reducing the carbon footprint. Yet the government is not including insulation in any of its announcements on carbon tax” said ICANZ Chief Executive Dennis D’arcy.
“There are plants that have closed down, stock that is still there. Of the big plants, CSR and Fletcher represent 70 per cent of the market. Fletcher has one plant mothballed in Sydney. CSR opened a plant at Brendale in Queensland that is barely ticking along. Two out of the four major insulation plants are under-operational or closed.”
The report acknowledges the shortcomings and tragedies of the previous scheme, but argues strongly in favour of a revised scheme, which it claims if properly implemented, could reduce household energy costs by almost $300 per year.
“After all, every year all new dwellings in Australia (typically 160,000+ per annum) are fitted with ceiling insulation (with a further 40,000+ existing dwellings retrofitted) with little or no problem. The issues with the HIP [Home Insulation Program] related to the design of the program delivery and not the measure itself,” the report says.
