Households across the United Kingdom will be able to move to low carbon heating sooner than expected after the Government announced it was pumping £14 million into the rollout to speed things up.
As part of the new funding, £9.7 million will be split across four different low carbon projects across the country. This money will help to cut costs and reduce disruption to consumers as it will allow for a more widespread rollout.
Implementing new innovative and cost-effective solutions
Two of the projects are based in Oxfordshire while the other two are in Bristol and Cambridgeshire. Each will be responsible for designing and implementing new innovative and cost-effective solutions for the deployment of heat pumps, which the Government believes are the future of household heating.
A further £5 million will go towards a new Heat Training Grant that will support 10,000 trainees over the next two years to become low carbon heating experts. This will mean that, in the long run, installation times for these heat pumps will be quicker, while creating new green jobs and helping the economy grow in green industries.
Parliament Under Secretary of State at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Lord Callanan, said:
“The funding will give the rollout of heat pumps a huge boost by making them cheaper and easier to install, and importantly helping more households move away from costly fossil fuels.
“But we need a skilled workforce to deliver this, so we’re training thousands of people to be experts at installing heat pumps and heat networking, driving the country’s push towards Net Zero.
“We’re also making sure the cost of installing a heat pump is more affordable than ever before through grants of up to £6,000 through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and a zero rate on VAT. So, it’s right we also put funding in place to train installers to meet demand.”
A continued effort
This latest funding is further evidence that the Government is getting serious about improving energy efficiency in the United Kingdom. Since 2020, they have spent around £15 million on developing skills in the carbon heating sector.
The new funding will ensure that heat pump training, which has been ongoing through Decarbonisation Skills Competition, will continue until at least 2025 while training for heat networks will now also be available. These training courses will ensure that trainees will be able to do everything from initial design to operation and maintenance.
The Government is particularly excited by the fact that heat network training can overlap with heat pump training. As a result, collaborative ways of working are likely to be discovered around installation.
The new £14 million funding will also help with the government’s £460 million Boiler Upgrade Scheme. This scheme allows households in the UK to apply for a grant which covers some of the cost of replacing fossil fuel heating systems with a heat pump or biomass boiler.
Those who have been successful in their applications will start to see their boilers replaced this December. Thanks to this new funding, the government is hopeful that 600,000 heat pumps will be installed per year by 2028. This would be ten times the amount that were installed in 2021.
Support from industry leaders
The news has been well-received by several industry leaders. Karen Boswell, Managing Director at heating manufacturer Baxi, said:
“We welcome the Government’s investment in developing the new skills needed to support the growth of low-carbon heating solutions in homes and buildings. We are fully committed to helping the industry transition to Net Zero, and we’re focused on helping individuals access opportunities to participate in the anticipated growth of air source heat pumps.”
Meanwhile, the CEO of Worcester Bosch, Carl Arntzens said that he was “delighted to see the announcement by the government of the funding for installers to become qualified to install heat pumps.” He added that there is “great interest in future technologies” and that “with this funding, installers can gain the confidence and skills to offer heat pumps to their customers.”
Final thought
From 2025, gas boilers will be banned in new-build homes as the Government tries to significantly reduce the number of harmful boilers in households. This is all part of their commitment to reducing emissions to zero by 2050 and while heat pumps won’t do this alone, they will certainly help.
Setting a target of 2028 for installation numbers means that this is another government target that will need to be adopted by the Labour Party should they win the next general election. However, as Net Zero is in everyone’s interests, this shouldn’t be sneered at by anyone in parliament.