SNP £3m heat pump pays for itself ... by 3024

It will take centuries of fuel savings to recoup the expense of replacing Crown Office boiler

A Tax-funded green scheme designed to hit SNP climate targets in Scotland has been branded “absurd” after it emerged it would take almost 1,000 years for taxpayers to recoup costs.

The price of decarbonising a small Victorian Crown Office building in Elgin, which involves insulation and installing a heat pump to replace a gas boiler, has risen to £3.5 million.

The estimated saving on annual energy bills is just £3,885, meaning it will take more than 900 years for the public purse to be reimbursed.

SNP and Green Party ministers want all Scottish homes to have zero-emission heating systems by 2045 and have sought to sell the plans to the public by claiming that making the switch to heat pumps will cut their domestic fuel bills.

However, critics have said the costs of converting will be extortionate, particularly for older properties.

“This Crown Office scheme involves utterly ludicrous expense to the taxpayer for minute benefit,” Fergus Ewing, a former SNP minister who now sits as a backbencher at Holyrood, told the Sunday Mail.

He added: “The annual savings will only be £3,885 and, as the total costs of the work are £3.5 million, it will take nearly 1,000 years to recoup the benefits. And that may not even take account of electricity running costs.”

The original costs of the “experimental” project to decarbonise the small procurator fiscal’s office in Elgin, Moray, was initially estimated to be £2.2million. It rose to £3.5million within a few months.

The scheme was supposed to demonstrate the viability of converting Victorian buildings to environmentally friendly heating.

However, figures disclosed through a Freedom of Information request suggest the project is costing £2,342 per square metre, with the building’s annual gas bill only around £2,500 on average. Therefore, a 100-square-metre flat would cost £234,000 to convert, and a 150-square-metre house would cost the property owner £351,000.

The average cost of a home in Scotland is £189,000.

Sources at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Scotland’s prosecution service, said they were “obliged” to undertake measures to meet targets set by the SNP government, which call for emissions to be reduced by 2.5 per cent per year and for the organisation to become “carbon neutral” by 2040.

The firm carrying out the work said it will become a “modern, eco-friendly and energy efficient space” by the summer.

The Crown Office said it was committed to significantly reducing carbon emissions and “investing in modern, environmentally efficient workplaces”.

A spokesman said: “This investment will allow [the Crown Office] to meet targets to reduce carbon emissions by 2.5 per cent each year, become carbon neutral by 2040 and to help deliver Scotland’s transition to net zero.

“All contracts are subject to a robust and compliant procurement process to ensure maximum value for money.”