Proposals for low-carbon heating grants ‘a long way’ from enough

The government’s proposals to support low-carbon heating installations following the scheduled closure of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is “a long way” from what’s necessary to put the UK on track for net-zero emissions by 2050.

Richard Lowes, energy policy researcher at the University of Exeter, described the plans as “disappointing”, saying they would do little more than maintain installations at already low levels.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) recently unveiled proposals to offer upfront grants of £4,000 for the installation of heat pumps, and in some circumstances biomass heating. Support will not be available for hybrid heating systems.

BEIS committed to provide two years of funding for the Clean Heat Grant scheme which is scheduled to begin in April 2022. The impact assessment accompanying the consultation indicated that the government would spend £45 million annually to support the installation of nearly 11,000 heat pumps per year.

In its net-zero report, the Committee on Climate Change suggested the UK may need to install 19 million heat pumps by 2050. The Heat Pump Association said annual installations would need to hit 250,000 by 2025 and one million by 2030.

“It is such a long way, in terms of the numbers in that consultation, from the net-zero requirements,” said Lowes. “Okay, that might not be a straight line, but it needs to be more than 10,000. That’s pretty clear.”

He welcomed the decision to replace tariffs with an upfront grant but noted that: “It is, in many cases, going to be less money overall.”

“If you’re going to do a medium-sized house with a ground-source heat pump, you’re still going to have to find quite a lot of cash,” he added.

Lowes worried that many early adopters, himself included, may have already had heat pumps installed, and that further demand may be lacking, particularly given previous issues: “The government’s communications around the RHI were completely non-existent and they left it entirely to the market… That’s in my view a bit of a failure of the scheme.”

He said his concerns have been exacerbated by the government’s unwillingness to acknowledge the failures of the RHI, the vast majority of which has gone towards biomass heating: “One of the things that stood out to me in the consultation was that they said the RHI had been a success in preparing the market. I just don’t think that’s the case.”

Lowes said new building regulations due to be introduced over the coming years may still put the UK on the right course, “but we can’t say that because we just don’t know.”

“There are so many positives that support heat decarbonisation now and that includes rapid costs fall in offshore wind, wind, solar; social change and public acceptance of climate change,” he concluded. “All of the technological winds are blowing in the right direction now and it just needs government support to get behind it.”