The Green Deal is a new government incentive scheme to help home owners upgrade their property thermally, and make savings on their utility bills.

Work to upgrade properties will be undertaken without any initial costs, with the fees for the work being claimed back slowly from the homeowner, as a percentage of monthly utility bill savings. In this way the home owner will see a reduction in their utility bills, whilst also paying back the costs of implementing the energy saving scheme. Once implemented, the Green Deal will allow up to £6,500 of upgrades to any individual dwelling, with the installation 'debt' attached to the dwelling rather than the current home owner.

In order to access the Green Deal an energy assessment of the dwelling is performed in order to determine how effective any improvements may be. If further insulation or perhaps solar panels are found to create a reasonable saving, then the work can continue.

Currently big retailers such as Marks & Spencer, Tesco and B&Q are interested in providing such schemes, with the current time line for full green deal access by October 2012.