Households in England and Wales will be offered a 拢5000 government grant from April to buy low-carbon heating systems, as the UK government takes a major first step to ending the country鈥檚 reliance on fossil fuels for keeping warm. The government is also planning to ban the sale of new gas boilers from 2035.
Gas boilers are used in about 86 per cent of UK homes, meaning heating and hot water for homes . The boilers also account for a growing share of air pollution in towns and cities.
Under the long-delayed Heat and Buildings Strategy, one of the decarbonisation strategies planned to help the UK achieve net-zero emissions, people will be encouraged to shift to heat pumps, which provide heating and hot water by using electricity to draw heat from the ground, air and other sources.
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The new grants will effectively halve the typical 拢10,000 cost of an installed air-source heat pump, bringing it closer in line with gas boilers, which usually cost less than 拢3000 to be installed.
A total of 拢450 million has been allocated for the new grants over three years, enough for 90,000 homes. About 67,000 heat pumps are expected to be sold this year, but the government has a target of 600,000 installed each year in homes and buildings by 2028 to help meet its climate change targets.
鈥淭here鈥檚 some really good stuff [in the strategy],鈥� says at Green Alliance, a UK-based think tank. The 拢450 million for grants is larger than expected, he says, with 拢100 million previously mooted. The Confederation of British Industry, which represents UK businesses, welcomed the grants, which it said would 鈥済et the ball rolling when it comes to decarbonising homes鈥�.
However, at the non-profit Regulatory Assistance Project says the funding is too low. 鈥淕iven that the target is to install 600,000 heat pumps per year, this is clearly not enough,鈥� he says.
The government said it would work with industry to cut the costs of installing heat pumps by as much as 50 per cent by 2025. One UK company, Octopus Energy, has built a 拢10 million research and development centre near London, .
But ministers deferred a crucial decision on a key way to make heat pumps cheaper by shifting the costs of environmental and social policies off electricity bills and on to gas bills instead. Such policies .
Instead, the UK鈥檚 Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in a statement: 鈥淢inisters want to reduce the price of electricity over the next decade by shifting levies away from electricity bills.鈥� But the decision 鈥� a potentially controversial one, as gas prices are already high due to the current energy crisis 鈥� will now wait until 2022.
Overall, the Heat and Buildings Strategy offers 拢3.9 billion of funding for decarbonising the UK鈥檚 buildings, from social housing to the public sector. Venables says the money appears to be new, rather than recycled from past announcements.
There is one big omission in the plans. 鈥淭he thing that seems to be missing is energy efficiency, insulation, draught-proofing and so on. That is a very quick win,鈥� says at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit in the UK.
The government鈥檚 strategy holds the door open for hydrogen playing a potential future role in low-carbon heating, saying a decision will me made on the fuel in 2026 after a 鈥渉ydrogen village鈥� pilot. Two other major UK documents on climate change, a net-zero strategy and net-zero review on the costs of cutting emissions, are expected to be published on 19 October.
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