“Heat pumps have a critical role to play in helping the UK get off gas and move towards smarter, more efficient ways to heat our homes. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is a hugely welcome measure to make this technology more affordable for all.”
Juliet Phillips, Electrify Heat
Today, 23rd May 2022, Electrify Heat welcomes the launch of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) as a key measure to spur the drive towards clean heat by providing an upfront grant to households in England and Wales to make heat pumps more affordable.
Those eligible can receive up to £5,000 for the cost and installation of an air source heat pump, and up to £6,000 for the cost and installation of a ground source heat pump.With fossil fuel prices soaring and likely to remain volatile in the years ahead, the electrification of heat as part of the long-term solution to get off gas has never been so important. With the help of the new grant, more households can now afford to make the transition. Over the next three years, £450 million of funding is being made available – with the recent British Energy Security Strategy indicating more money could be provided if demand for vouchers outstrips supply. The BUS provides a boost for installers and manufacturers around the country to spur demand and drive innovation, which in turn could help reduce costs.
Electrify Heat and its members look forward to working with the government to support the successful delivery of the scheme, and hope to see it further scaled and expanded over time.
Quotes from members:
Juliet Phillips, Campaign Lead for Electrify Heat says: “Heat pumps have a critical role to play in helping the UK get off gas and move towards smarter, more efficient ways to heat our homes. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is a hugely welcome measure to make this technology more affordable for all.”
Charles Wood, Energy UK’s Deputy Director of Policy (New Energy Services and Heat), says: “Energy UK welcomes the Boiler Upgrade Scheme as a mechanism to deliver clean heat faster and more affordably to households across the country. Consumers are currently being exposed to extremely high gas prices, and the need to transition to energy-efficient homes with low-carbon heating has never been more pressing. Energy suppliers are leading the clean heating revolution by investing in skills and training, and innovative new products. However, a grant scheme is only one piece of the puzzle. Making our homes more energy efficient will ensure they are ready for low-carbon heating, and delayed regulations that support this initiative must be released as soon as possible. Furthermore, continuing the national smart meter roll out will help households save on energy usage and enable smarter tariffs.”
Stew Horne, Head of Policy at Energy Saving Trust said: “Heat pumps are a vital technology to help decarbonise heat in homes this decade – a key part of improving energy security and enabling the UK’s transition to net zero. We welcome the financial support that the Boiler Upgrade Scheme provides for households in England and Wales looking to switch to low carbon heat. The clear criteria for installers to be industry certified will help to provide householders with confidence that their heat pump will be installed to the correct standards and perform effectively. We hope that there will be wide uptake of the Scheme and that this will result in further funding commitments by Government, to enable an acceleration of heat pump deployment across the UK.”
Laura Bishop, Chair of the Ground Source Heat Pump Association said: “GSHPA welcomes today’s launch of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and grants of £6,000 for ground source heat pumps. Together with zero VAT, the BUS should help reinforce consumer confidence in investing in ground source heat pumps, but we’d like to see more Government ambition for the scheme. GSHPA is urging Government to increase funding significantly for the BUS, so that it can make a more important contribution to domestic heat pump uptake and the transition to low carbon heat.”
Faisal Hussain, Chief Executive, HIES says: “The Boiler Upgrade Scheme should help consumers transition from fossil fuel to low-carbon technologies such as heat pumps. This in turn will help the climate and should give us the platform to achieve net zero-carbon by 2050.”
Edward Thompson of ICAX said: “ICAX welcomes the upfront grant to support the transition to clean heating systems as more appropriate and simpler than the RHI which was expensive to administer. We think the government should provide further funding to encourage the growth of the supply chain so that the UK can reduce its emissions, improve air quality and reduce its dependence on Russian gas. The government should also reduce the huge levies on electricity which are holding back heat pump installations in the UK to just 2% of heating systems, compared to 96% of new heating systems in Norway.”
Notes:
- 2022 analysis in from the Regulatory Assistance Project has shown that installing an efficient heat pump system today can save a typical UK household around 27% on their heating bills compared to a gas boiler – after the energy price cap rises in April 2022.
- Recent polling from NESTA and the UK Government’s Behavioural Insights Team has shown that 25% of homeowners would be willing to pay the full cost of a whole home heat pump installation (around £10,000-£12,000) while roughly one in three homeowners would be willing to pay a bit extra if it meant reducing emissions. For the rest, cost remains the biggest barrier to heat pump adoption, followed by information. The study was based on 1,081 homeowners in England and Wales.
- In 2021, The Electrification of Heat demonstration project, funded by BEIS and the Energy Systems Catapult, found that ‘there is no property type or architectural era that is unsuitable for a heat pump,’ based on a study of 742 different installations around the country.
- Modern air-to-water heat pumps will heat water to over 60 degrees and can work efficiently at an outside temperature as low as -25 degrees. The average air source heat pump is three times more efficient even than a top-rated gas boiler in its use of energy to heat a home to the same temperature.
For further information please contact: Juliet Phillips on juliet@electrifyheat.uk
