Heat Pumps Today

24 The Government’s Heat and Building Strategy has come under fire, being described by one industry leader as “insufficient for the scale of the challenge we face“. Government’s Clean Homes Grant derided as ‘insufficient for the scale of the challenge’ For more information, visit https://eua.org.uk/ The comments, from Mike Foster, CEO of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, come in the wake of the government announcing a Clean Homes Grant as part of the Heat and Buildings Strategy, of £450 million over the next three years. Commenting on the announcement, Mr Foster said: “The grant hardly sets December | January 2022 H E A T A N D B U I L D I N G S T R A T E G Y Mike Foster the world alight and is insu…cient to the scale of the challenge we face in terms of reaching Net Zero.” “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.” Mr. Foster is also concerned with the plight of those in fuel poverty. “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 £5000 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, £150 million a year, 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. Instead, removing 45,000 gas boilers, replacing them with the subsidised heat pumps will remove only 71,000 tonnes of carbon each year. This is hardly the COP figure the Prime Minister wants to read.”