Boiler vouchers will help just 90,000 homes switch from gas

Big changes to the way we live our lives are promised as Government unveils its decarbonisation roadmap

‘We are backing our brilliant innovators to make clean technology as cheap to buy and run as gas boilers’

ONLY 90,000 households will receive vouchers to help with the cost of getting rid of their gas boilers, the Government will announce today, as the prospect of additional green levies on gas bills is raised.

Boris Johnson will commit to the “ambition” of ending the sale of gas boilers in the UK from 2035, in one of a series of announcements on climate change. To hit the target, a new Boiler Upgrade Scheme will be set up, giving people £5,000 vouchers to switch to heat pumps, which are less polluting.

The scheme for England and Wales, which will begin next April and last initially for three years, will be funded with £450 million. However, that means just 90,000 households can benefit.

Government sources last night pushed back on suggestions the scheme was too limited, saying it was designed to “kick-start” demand for heat pumps.

Ministers and some energy bosses believe that the cost of a gas boiler and a heat pump will even out in the coming years. However, critics will question whether the voucher scheme will have an impact given only a fraction of the population will be able to benefit – and those who do are likely to have already planned to switch.

The Government will recommit to removing green levies placed on electricity bills in an attempt to drive down the cost of heat pumps. One option is understood to be placing green levies on gas bills instead, despite gas prices soaring due to global shortages.

The voucher scheme is part of the Heat and Buildings Strategy, published today, which will map out how the country will move away from polluting energy sources.

In total, £3.9 billion in new funding will be announced for five schemes. The Government will also publish its net-zero strategy, detailing the full spectrum of changes being adopted so Britain can hit net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The Prime Minister will deliver a speech today outlining the case for the green drive, with less than a fortnight to go before the Cop26 UN climate change conference in Glasgow.

Mr Johnson said: “As we clean up the way we heat our homes over the next decade, we are backing our brilliant innovators to make clean technology like heat pumps as cheap to buy and run as gas boilers – supporting thousands of green jobs. Our new grants will help home owners make the switch sooner, without costing them extra, so that going green is the better choice when their boiler needs an upgrade.” In an interview with Bloomberg last night, Mr Johnson admitted Cop26 talks will be “extremely tough”.

Meanwhile, Lord Howard of Lympne, the former Conservative leader, today backs bold measures to tackle climate change. He writes for The Daily Telegraph: “We should all embrace this opportunity to safeguard our national security by fighting climate change at home and abroad through diplomatic and political leadership.”

Gas prices are likely to rise, as the Government adds a green tax to fund biomethane, and considers carbon pricing

EV sales have risen rapidly in recent years, with half of cars on the road predicted to be electric as soon as 2030

BRITAIN has committed to an ambitious plan to phase out fossil fuels over the next 30 years and the Government’s net-zero strategy is today expected to provide the blueprint for how we will travel, heat our homes and run our economy in the future.

The Government will be hoping the plan will improve its climate credentials as it prepares to host the Cop26 international climate summit in Glasgow in two weeks but it risks undermining its role if it fails to deliver on promises.

Gas boilers

Gas boilers heat 85 per cent of the UK’S homes, and account for around 14 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions. They also pose perhaps the biggest road bump in the Government’s decarbonisation plan.

It wants to ensure no new gas boilers are installed from 2035, but will today stop short of a hard ban on sales, instead laying out an “ambition”, amid concern that alternatives are too expensive and unfamiliar. In reality, it will have to introduce a hard ban if it hopes to meet its green targets. In the meantime, it is relying on industry promises that lowcarbon technology, such as heat pumps, will drop in price to roughly the same as a gas boiler by 2030.

Before then, it is hoped a £5,000 grant scheme to buy heat pumps will incentivise people to make the switch. But the £450million three-year scheme will only cover 30,000 homes annually, fewer than the number of households that installed a heat pump in 2020.

Meanwhile, gas prices are likely to rise as the Government adds a green tax to fund biomethane, and considers carbon pricing. It is also committed to cutting the cost of electricity bills to encourage people to take up heat pumps, by removing the 20 per cent that comes from environmental and social levies. These could also be added to the cost of gas.

Renewable electricity

Nuclear is expected to feature significantly in the Government’s plans to decarbonise electricity generation.

It will today promise to agree funding for a new nuclear power plant as the country’s existing reactors are retired in the next 15 years. Funding for the plant is likely to be added to household energy bills in the near future, although it is likely to be more than a decade until the plant is running.

The Government’s plan to source all of the UK’S electricity from renewables by 2035 will therefore rely heavily on untested technologies, including carbon capture and storage (CCS), significant battery capacity and hydrogen. Next week, it is expected to announce which CCS projects will be first in line for development funding.

It will also have to ramp up offshore wind, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying he wants to see it go from 10GW of electricity a year to 60GW.

Onshore wind and solar are also likely to be a bigger feature on the British landscape. The climate change committee (CCC) has called for onshore wind to be doubled by 2035, from 14GW to 30GW, enough to power 19.5million homes, which is likely to take up an extra 1,275 sq miles of land, an area more than twice the size of London.

Land for solar farms will have to increase fivefold, the CCC says.

Hydrogen

The Government has an ambition to produce 5GW of hydrogen for use in heavy industry, manufacture and transport by 2030.

Concerns have been raised that it does not distinguish between “blue” hydrogen, which is made using fossil gas and carbon capture technology, and “green” hydrogen, which is made from electricity. Only green hydrogen, made using renewable electricity, is considered properly low carbon,

The Government is also carrying out trials to determine whether hydrogen could be used in home heating and says it will decide by 2026.

It will today say that hydrogen-ready boilers will only be installed in 2035 in areas where they are “confident” of supply, amid warnings that green hydrogen will be too expensive for home heating. But homeowners could still face higher energy bills to pay for the gas under a subsidy scheme to help fund its development for use across the economy.

Cars

The sale of petrol and diesel cars will be banned from 2030, with the most polluting hybrids to follow in 2035.

The Government has committed £1.3billion to supplying charging infrastructure around the country and is expected to introduce a requirement for carmakers to ensure a growing proportion of sales are electric vehicles (EV).

EV sales have risen rapidly in recent years, with half of cars on the road predicted to be electric as soon as 2030, and the Government plans to trim its £2,500 grant to reflect rapidly dropping upfront costs.

However, there remain big unanswered questions about how we get there, not least how the Treasury will plug the nearly £40billion gap in fuel duty and vehicle excise duty that will open up as we switch to EVS. The possibility of a move to road pricing has not been raised in the net-zero strategy.

The Government’s plan for aviation includes its jet-zero council, which is exploring decarbonising the sector. It will also consider an expansion of pollution taxes on flying, under the UK’S emissions trading scheme, which could lead to higher airline fares.

Nature

The role of trees, peat and marine environments as vital carbon sinks has risen up the global agenda and is likely to feature prominently at the Cop26 climate summit.

The Government has committed to planting 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) of trees per year by 2024 in England, and to restoring 35,000 hectares of peatland by 2025.

Peatlands store three times as much carbon in the UK as its forests and damaged peatland is producing as much carbon as all HGVS on British roads, according to a recent report.

A ban on peat-based compost will come into force in 2024.

Costs

Alongside the net-zero strategy, the Treasury will release its own review of the costs of the decarbonisation transition. The long-delayed document has been the target of a political battle between No 10 and the Treasury, and has been rewritten from an earlier version that focused heavily on the cost burden on households.

The new version will say that the costs of decarbonising will be less than the overall cost of inaction on climate change. However, it will also warn that there are economic risks involved in the transition, including a potential loss of competitive advantage if green UK industries are forced to compete with cheaper, more polluting countries.