Government announces Warm Homes Plan: comment

Commenting on Government plans to bolster energy efficiency and support heat pump rollout under the Warm Homes Plan [1] Dr Simon Cran-McGreehin, Head of Analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said:

"The Energy Crisis Commission concluded that the UK is dangerously underprepared for another energy crisis because it remains heavily reliant on gas including for home heating. [2]

"Bills will remain high throughout the winter and likely beyond so efforts to help households insulate so they can use less energy will need to ramp up in the years ahead if family finances aren’t to falter in the face of ongoing high prices.

“Households being helped to switch to heat pumps, away from boilers, is essential if the UK is not to become increasingly dependent on foreign gas as the North Sea, moratorium or not, continues its decline.

“The gas boiler industry was called out by the previous Government for running ‘campaigns of misinformation’ around heat pumps and invented its own boiler tax in response to the Clean Heat Market Mechanism [3], so the details of any policy changes will need to be viewed in that light. Research suggests that 6,000 manufacturing jobs could be in jeopardy if the UK is slow to transition to heat pumps.” [4]