Insulation and electric heat pumps will cut ties to Russian gas quicker than new North Sea gas fields

The UK meets 4% of its gas demand from Russia which would equate to £6million a day under recent wholesale prices. The equivalent demand could be wiped out in just five years (as early as 2027) helping to protect 6.5 million homes from volatile gas prices through insulation and electric heat pumps. As the gas price is set by international markets, only by using less gas can households lock in lower costs. North Sea fields proposed earlier this year wouldn’t cut costs for customers and wouldn’t come fully online until 2028. [2]

Heat pumps will be on average £260 a year cheaper to operate than gas boilers from April 2022 [3] and the new Boiler Upgrade Scheme which also kicks off in April will provide £5,000 to households wanting to switch to a heat pump. [4] All types of homes in the UK are suited having a heat pump, and an estimated 9million homes have good levels of thermal efficiency such that they could have a heat pump fitted easily. [5]

Commenting, Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin, Head of Analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said: “The net zero path leads us to common sense home insulation and clean, renewable, homegrown energy that enables us to cut dependence on other countries like Russia for gas and oil. It’s a permanent solution and the UK needs to embrace it with greater urgency if we want to be truly energy secure.”

Dr Jan Rosenow, Principal and European Programme Director, Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) said:

“A massive scaling up of energy efficiency and heat pumps are the obvious response to sky high gas prices and the dependency on gas. The government’s targets are ambitious but not ambitious enough. We could go faster and further as the Committee on Climate Change have shown time and time again, and get ourselves off Russian gas well before 2027.”

Recent polling from Opinium for ECIU [6] shows that a clear majority (57%) of the public see the best way of eliminating UK dependence on Russian gas as reducing our use of gas all together, and instead expanding renewables. Less than a third (29%) see increasing the UK's domestic supply of gas through expanded drilling and fracking as the solution.

Wholesale gas price rises are driving the vast majority of energy bill hikes, with gas directly adding at least £500 to the average bill under April's new price cap, with a further £68 due to supplier collapses.

If UK homes were upgraded using insulation and other heating efficiency measures, such that the average EPC rating moved from band D to the Government's target of band C, each household would use on average 20% less gas, overall UK gas demand would fall by 8%, and imports could be reduced by 15%. [7]