The new boiler scrappage scheme should have been rolled out across the country to help meet the UK’s ambitious carbon reduction targets.
Around 12,700 households in Greater London currently use oil for heating and an estimated 60% of these still have standard efficiency boilers in need of replacement. As a predominately urban area, Greater London has one of the lowest percentages of oil households in the country.
But if the scrappage scheme were to be extended to help the rest of the UK’s 1.4 million oil using households, OFTEC, the trade association for the oil heating industry, believes the resulting carbon savings would be much higher.
Jeremy Hawksley, director general, said: “The introduction of a boiler scrappage scheme in Greater London which includes oil is to be celebrated. It demonstrates what we have been saying all along – that boiler scrappage is an ideal way to help UK households reduce carbon emissions from heating in a practical, affordable way.
“With an estimated 4.5 million UK homes still classed as fuel poor, and cost remaining a major motivator for most consumers, our country urgently needs carbon reduction schemes that don’t cost the earth and actually work.”
Similar boiler scrappage schemes have already been tried and tested. In Great Britain 120,000 old, inefficient boilers were replaced in 2010 and, in Northern Ireland, 15,540 oil boilers were upgraded between April 2012 and September 2015.
Both schemes had positive effects on the environment, in terms of reduced carbon emissions, and on fuel bills.