George Webb, CEO of Liquid Gas UK, has responded to the Energy Security and Net Zero (ESNZ) Committee’s ‘Retrofitting Homes for Net Zero’ report.
We welcome the ESNZ Committee’s focus on the urgent need to decarbonise home heating and agree consumers, installers, and the supply chain need long-term certainty to invest in low carbon technologies.
While we acknowledge that electrification will be the primary route for decarbonisation, as the report highlights, we are concerned that the strong emphasis on heat pumps overlooks the practical and financial challenges faced by millions of households—particularly those off the gas grid
The report notes that around 15% of homes in England are off-grid, with many built pre-1919 using solid wall construction, making them difficult and costly to retrofit. Our analysis supports this: up to 36% of off-grid homes are unsuitable for heat pumps, and 70% of rural homeowners find the technology unaffordable. Rural grid constraints also continue to limit electrification’s reach and viability. A mixed-technology approach is essential to ensure these communities are not left behind
We welcomed the government’s commitment, recently reiterated by the Energy Secretary, that no household should be forced to remove their boiler or face financial hardship during the transition. Changing course now risks undermining consumer confidence. Instead, policy should remain focused on supporting properties where heat pumps may not be viable by enabling the adoption of proven, low-carbon alternatives like renewable liquid gases. It’s encouraging to see the report acknowledge that off-grid homes using heating oil—more carbon-intensive than LPG or natural gas—could be decarbonised using renewable liquid fuels.
Renewable liquid gases, including bioLPG and Renewable Dimethyl Ether (rDME), are ‘drop-in’ fuels that use existing LPG systems, cutting emissions by up to 90% versus heating oil and saving households up to £2,000 annually compared to heat pumps.
With the right policy support, displacing fossil fuels with renewable liquid gases could cut emissions equal to removing 1.3m cars from UK roads by 2050.
As an industry committed to being 100% renewable by 2040, we urge policymakers to adopt a mixed-technology approach including renewable liquid gases to ensure a fair, affordable and feasible energy transition.