The relaunch of the government’s flagship scheme to help people lower their energy bills and cut carbon emissions was marred by IT problems on Wednesday morning.
The new £30m round of funding for the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund was announced by ministers on Sunday as a way for householders to claim as much as £5,600 for installing energy efficiency measures.
But the intended opening for applications at 9am on Wednesday morning was delayed after the government’s website faced technical problems. It was later fixed and people can now apply and claim £1,000 for a pair of measures including new boilers and loft installation and even more for solid wall insulation.
Apologies for the delay with applying to #gdhif there's a few technical issues that we're working hard to fix. We'll keep you updated
— DECC (@DECCgovuk) December 10, 2014
The first £120m round of the fund was shut after changes to the scheme saw £70m of funding taken up in three days in July, leading to expectations that the new funding will be exhausted quickly. 195 people submitted more than five applications during the summer rush, and 625 submitted more than one, among a total of 8,986 applications.
The wider Green Deal scheme has come in for criticism for IT problems before, with the launch in 2013 affected by IT systems for energy companies dealing with the scheme being more complicated than anticipated.
At the time of Wednesday morning’s official launch, a separate government website had not been updated to reflect the new funding offer, but was later updated after enquiries from the Guardian.
A Decc spokeswoman said: “There were some technical issues this morning which were resolved in less than an hour. The Green Deal Home Improvement Fund is now open for applications and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
