‘We’ve crossed a massive milestone in our fight against climate change and to reduce Britain’s reliance on expensive, dirty gas’
With the government setting out £5,000 grants for households to swap boilers for heat pumps, will this be enough to lead to a green revolution in the UK?
GRANTS of £5,000 will be available to households to replace their gas boiler with a low carbon heat pump as part of efforts to cut emissions from homes.
The Government announced the grants as it confirmed a target for all new heating system installations to be low carbon by 2035 - but insisted families are not going to be forced to remove their existing fossil fuel boilers.
Switching to low carbon heating in the coming years will cut emissions, and reduce the UK’S dependency on fossil fuels and exposure to global price spikes in gas, ministers said.
But experts and environmental groups warned the £450 million three-year pot to switch from boilers would only pay for 30,000 heat pumps a year – a fraction of what is needed to meet Government targets.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has sought to reassure householders they would not have to rip out their existing boilers.
He said: “While we’re going to have to make some pretty major changes to the way we heat our homes, the Greenshirts of the Boiler Police are not going to kick in your door with their sandal-clad feet and seize, at carrot-point, your trusty old combi.”
Instead, he said that the plan was to make low carbon systems such as heat pumps cheaper, so it made sense to install the clean alternatives when boilers naturally needed replacing.
The moves form part of the heat and buildings strategy published yesterday, along with the Government’s wider plans to cut UK climate emissions to net zero overall by 2050 to tackle climate change.
The strategy aims to support the Government’s ambition to end the installation of new fossil fuel heating systems by 2035, though the target is not currently a legal ban.
The Government said it would work with industry to make heat pumps the same cost to buy and run as fossil fuel units by 2030.
Heat pumps currently cost an average of £10,000 to install and do not necessarily deliver savings on running costs because green levies are higher on electricity than on gas. Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, left, said: “Recent volatile global gas prices have highlighted the need to double down on our efforts to reduce Britain’s reliance on fossil fuels and move away from gas boilers over the coming decade to protect consumers in long term.
“As the technology improves and costs plummet over the next decade, we expect low carbon heating systems will become the obvious, affordable choice for consumers.”
Jan Rosenow, Europe director at the Regulatory Assistance Project, which aims to accelerate the shift to clean, reliable and efficient energy, said: “Providing grants for installing heat pumps is essential as they are more expensive than gas boilers, but the level of funding is too low.” Environmental campaigners at Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth also criticised the level of funding for heat pumps and energy efficiency measures in homes, while shadow business secretary Ed Miliband labelled the plans a ‘meagre, unambitious and wholly inadequate response’. But Greg Jackson, left, chief executive and founder of Octopus Energy, said when the grant scheme launches the company will install heat pumps at a similar cost as gas boilers and had begun training 1,000 engineers a year.
“Electric heat pumps are more efficient, safer and cleaner than gas boilers and can help make homes more comfortable with less energy,” Mr Jackson said. “Today we’ve crossed a massive milestone in our fight against climate change and to reduce Britain’s reliance on expensive, dirty gas.”