Heat pump funding deemed insufficient by EUA

Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance.
Mike Foster, chief executive of the EUA, who last year brokered a price promise on hydrogen ready boilers

The government’s Heat and Building Strategy has been described by an industry leader as “insufficient for the scale of the challenge we face”.

Mike Foster, CEO of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, said today’s strategy was “insufficient to the scale of the challenge we face in terms of reaching Net Zero”.

He added: “It subsidises 30,000 heat pumps being installed each year and is well short of the support needed to get to 600,000 heat pumps installed each year by 2028. My suspicion is that the Chancellor is putting the brakes on the Prime Minister’s flight of green fantasy.

“I suspect hydrogen-ready boiler installations will be far greater than that number by 2028, suggesting that consumers have made their choice. But that choice, between heat pumps or hydrogen-ready boilers, is one they should have.”

A new £450 million ‘Boiler Upgrade Scheme’ has been announced by government as part of its long-awaited Heat and Buildings Strategy this week. New grants of £5,000 will be available from April 2022 to encourage homeowners to install low carbon heating systems such as heat pumps.

Mike added: “For the 4.5 million households currently in fuel poverty, faced with rocketing bills and cuts to their universal credit, they must wonder what they have done wrong.

“The £5,000 grant only pays half the cost of a heat pump, so those in fuel poverty will see no warmth from the government’s generosity; instead, it is middle-class bung for people who were probably going to fit a heat pump anyway.”

For the same amount of money, he added, half a million homes could have loft insulation fitted, saving each household £135 a year, and removing 290,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year.

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