Government Misses Heat Pump Target as Householders Snub Boiler Upgrade Scheme

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer inspects a heat pump demonstrator during a visit to renewable energy company, Octopus Energy, in Slough, England, on Jan. 23, 2023. Jonathan Brady/PA Media

The government has missed a target for installing heat pumps, a key part of the UK’s plans to reach net zero by 2050.

Data published on Thursday showed that of the 30,000 households targeted by the government only half had applied for the £5,000 grants on offer since the scheme started in May 2022.

Heating of homes is estimated to account for 14 percent of the UK’s carbon emissions and the government set up the Boiler Upgrade Scheme last year in a bid to reduce that figure by getting people to switch over to heat pumps.

Heat pumps run on electricity and work like a fridge in reverse, to extract energy from the air or ground.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme lasts until 2028 but the UK Climate Change Committee (UKCCC), a watchdog which is designed to keep track of efforts to reach the net zero target, said the government was “significantly off track.”

The UKCCC said the main reasons for the poor uptake was the high cost of heat pumps, a shortage of trained installers and the lack of insulation, which is required to make heat pumps effective.

Unused £70 Million in Grants Given Back to Treasury

The scheme has an unused budget of £70 million for grants from 2022/2023 and this money cannot be used for future grants and will now be sent back to the Treasury.

A House of Lords committee said in February the Boiler Upgrade Scheme was failing because of a shortage of installers, lack of public awareness, high installation and maintenance costs and misleading messaging.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 3, 2021. Yves Herman/Reuters

Last month concerns were raised about the noise caused by heat pumps, which operate at around 40 decibels and can get up to 60 decibels, about as loud as a refrigerator.

Mike Foster, CEO of the industry body representing gas heating specialists The Energy and Utilities Alliance, told The Epoch Times, “It won’t be just 50 decibels, it will be 200 homes on an estate emitting 50 decibels and what that might do to the neighbourhood and cumulative background noise.”

Earlier this week an analysis by WWF UK and ScottishPower said there was a “substantial gap” between what the government has delivered on insulation and its targets.

The government has pledged to reduce domestic energy consumption by 15 percent but the new study found it was on target to insulate only one-sixth of the homes needed to meet that target.

The analysis, carried out by Frontier Economics, estimated 1.5 million homes would need heat pumps instead of gas boilers and another 600,000 homes connected to low-carbon heat networks.

The government has made £288 million available to a Green Heat Network Fund, which awards cash to building systems which take heat from air, solar or geothermal energy and provide it to multiple homes, removing the need for individual gas boilers.

Isabella O’Dowd, head of climate policy at WWF, said, “With our homes accounting for 16 percent of the UK’s carbon emissions, the UK government must act now and tell us how it will insulate the extra five million homes it needs to keep us on track to meet its green ambitions and drive down bills.”

‘Government’s Record on Energy Efficiency Speaks for Itself’

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said, “The government’s record on energy efficiency speaks for itself, with the proportion of homes in England with an EPC rating of C or above up from 14 percent in 2010 to 47 percent in 2022.”

“Our Boiler Upgrade Scheme provides grants of up to £6,000 towards the upfront cost of installing a heat pump and we are fully confident we will meet our target of 600,000 heat pump installations by 2028,” he added.

The spokesperson said: “What’s more, an additional 300,000 of the UK’s least energy efficient homes are in line for improvement under the new Great British Insulation Scheme, and we have committed £6.6 billion towards upgrades this parliament with a further £6 billion from 2025.”

Last year a High Court judge ruled the government must provide greater transparency on its net zero plans.

UK greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 46 percent since 1990, mainly because of the removal of coal from electricity generation.

PA Media contributed to this report.