One in four homes to get eco-makeover

More than one in four homes in the UK will be offered an environmental makeover in an effort by the Department of Energy and Climate Change to cut a third of greenhouse gas emissions from households by 2020.

Some seven million homes will receive the voluntary makeover, which will include insulations and free advice on suitable small-scale electricity generation technologies.

The scheme will be partly funded by nearly £1bn in household energy-saving initiatives from UK energy firms, which prime minister Gordon Brown announced last year in response to calls for a windfall tax on the "Big Six" power companies.

A report by Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute in 2007 found that only four out of every 1,000 homes had any low-and-zero carbon technologies. The report also warned that emissions from the sector would rise by 23 per cent by the middle of the century under a business as usual scenario.

Improving building energy efficiency is widely recognised as one of the most cost-effective means of cutting carbon emissions, while also allowing households and businesses to cut energy bills

However, Lord Turner's recent Climate Change Committee report on moving to a low-carbon economy warned many home insulation projects "will not be pursued even at a high carbon price, because of the hassle involved in deciding which particular solution to pursue, in appointing suppliers and supervising work".

It concluded: "As a result, non-price policy interventions can in many instances be more effective than carbon prices."

The government now looks set to follow this advice with the development of mandatory rollout schemes.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said more details on the plans would be announced by energy and climate secretary Ed Miliband on Thursday.