Junior Energy Minister Conor Lenihan has launched a nationwide scheme expected to generate thousands of new jobs in the clean-tech sector over the next six to 12 months.

The main focus of the Greenloan Home Energy Savers Scheme is to create employment opportunities in local communities throughout Ireland by grouping homeowners to avail of large discounts in upgrading their properties.

Over 250 clusters comprising thousands of homeowners in all 26 counties have already been created under the scheme, which was originally piloted in 2008 as part of the pilot phase of the SEI Home Energy Saving Scheme (HES).

Minister Lenihan said his department has made almost €50m available to the Home Energy Saving Scheme this year.

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"This is expected to fund in excess of 30,000 home energy upgrades this year alone and generate a large amount of much needed employment in the current economic circumstances," he said.

Aidan Burke, of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), said: "CIF is delighted to see the launch of this innovative scheme and sees long term benefits in funding the retrofitting of buildings and creating construction employment."

Scheme Administrator Mary Stewart said: "We believe clean-tech and construction workers will benefit from the thousands of jobs created by this scheme over the next year as people look to renovate their homes with new wood pellet boilers, solar hot water systems, and attic and cavity wall insulation."

Ms Stewart said an estimated €800,000 was injected into the Co Mayo economy during the eight-week pilot scheme.

"Over 115 homes with an average investment of 7,500 euro underwent upgrades, which were carried out by 40 separate contractors throughout Mayo.

"If the same numbers occur on the national scheme as on the pilot, we can expect to create in excess of 4000 jobs in the next year," she added.

(PR/JM)