‘Make heat pumps cheaper than boilers’
Cost of greener option and lack of installers ‘makes hard sell even harder’, warns infrastructure tsar
A BAN on the sale of new boilers will be needed to persuade people to switch to greener heat pumps, the Government’s infrastructure chief has said.
An annual target of 600,000 installations of heat pumps has been set by the Government by 2028.
Heat pumps, which draw energy from the air or ground using electricity, can cut carbon emissions around 75 per cent but currently cost around £10,000 to install.
The National Infrastructure Commission is investigating ways to fund the transition and encourage the take-up of heat pumps and will make recommendations to the Government next year.
But Sir John Armitt, its chairman, suggested a ban on the sale of new gas boilers would have to be part of the answer. “Why would you move to a heat pump at somewhere between £5-15,000 as long as you can buy or exchange for a new gas boiler for £1,500,” Sir John said.
“The only way that you can make such a significant shift is by saying, well, that from a particular date, you will not be able to buy a new gas boiler.”
The Government is aiming for the sale of new gas boilers to be phased out by the mid-2030s, but has declined to set a date for a ban.
Instead, it is hoping to boost the market with grants for a few households, and funds to help boost manufacture in the UK.
A new £450 million government grant scheme will cover up to £5,000 of the costs, but is only expected to contribute to around 90,000 installations over three years.
Companies such as Octopus Energy have promised near price parity between their heat pumps and gas boilers within years.
“Heat pump technology has been around since 1948, but the cost is still high because manufacturing for the UK market is subscale, and installation is a cottage industry,” said Greg Jackson, Founder of Octopus Energy.
“The goal is to get the total cost of buying, installing and running a heat pump to be cheaper than for a gas boiler – so heat pumps won’t need subsidies at all,” Mr Jackson added.
Sir John also warned that a lack of installers could lead to households being left with poor set-ups.
There are only about 1,800 trained heat pump installers, which means a shortage of about 58,000 to hit the government goal of 600,000 installations a year by 2028.
“While there are some great installers out there, at present the size of the prize is not sufficient to be able to rely on finding one everywhere,” he said. “Poor quality installation makes a hard sell even harder.
Inevitably the quality of fitting will become more consistent as demand grows, but to get to 600,000 heat pumps going into homes every year we have to reduce any disincentives for homeowners as soon as possible.”
The infrastructure tsar dismissed hopes that hydrogen could play a significant role in replacing gas in boilers and said there was little alternative to heat pumps for the UK to decarbonise its home heating, which accounts for around 14 per cent of emissions.
But he said using them to replace gas boilers in 23 million homes would require a change of attitude to heating, and might require back up by space heaters, because heat pumps work best at lower temperatures, which are maintained throughout the day.