The legal framework for the Green Deal was put in place earlier this week. This regulatory green light signals to industry that the market can now get started.

In practice it means that Green Deal providers, assessors and installers can start to become authorised, and display the Green Deal Quality Mark, and put in place their systems for delivering assessments to consumers – although consumers won’t be able to sign up to a Green Deal finance plan until 28th January 2013.

The Green Deal will remove the biggest barriers to demand for energy efficiency solutions, opening up the market for more participants and giving people more choice.

From late January, Green Deal Providers will be able to offer Green Deal plans to consumers and begin delivering energy efficiency and heating measures and go on to meet the Government’s ambitions for a major programme of national energy efficiency retrofit.

The Green Deal will empower consumers by giving them new ways of funding home improvements, and empower businesses by enabling them to compete for energy efficiency opportunities in new and innovative ways. It will boost the low carbon economy by supporting up to 60,000 jobs in the insulation sector alone by 2015, up from around 26,000 today.

The Green Deal could see British homes and businesses save enough energy to power 1 million homes in 2020.

Businesses wanting to find out about the Green Deal for the first time can should visit the Green Deal Industry pages on the DECC website or visit http://cutcarbon.info/