'From zero carbon heat laggard to leader': Green groups urge government to back heat pumps in recovery plans

In a last ditch pitch ahead of the unveiling of the next phase of the government's economic recovery package next week, green groups have written to the Chancellor today to urge him to prioritise investments that can decarbonise the nation's housing stock.

A letter signed by Greenpeace, CPRE, Friends of the Earth, E3G, and Possible urges Chancellor Rishi Sunak to transform the UK from "zero-carbon heat laggard to leader" by adopting a range of measures that can stimulate the heat pump market.

The groups warn the decarbonisation of heat is "the biggest gap" the UK faces in meeting its net zero target. Space heating and hot water in buildings accounts for 21 per cent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, they said, yet only 100,000 heat pumps were installed last year, a tiny fraction of the one million annual target required to meet the UK's net zero target.

The letter urges the government to commit to halving emissions from heating by 2030, an intermediate goal that would get the country "on track" to net zero.

Ed Matthew, associate director at climate think tank E3G, predicted energy efficiency measures and the installation of heat pumps could create more jobs across the UK than any other capital infrastructure programme.

"It is the perfect economic stimulus to boost jobs and can help get us on track to net-zero and solve fuel poverty," he said. "No other infrastructure programme can do so much for people in every part of the country. If the Government is serious about building our way out of the recession, it must prioritise the re-building of our homes to make them zero carbon."

To kick start a zero-carbon heating transformation, the charities are calling for a £100m Clean Heat Grant programme for heat pumps, which was announced in the last Budget, to be brought forward to this year to enable a 'Cash for Clunkers' heat scheme that would provide grants to those who exchange old fossil fuel-fired boilers for heat pumps.

The campaign groups also want the government to set a target to bring all homes to at least EPC Band C by the end of the decade, and deliver on its manifesto pledge of investing £9.2bn on energy efficiency upgrades for low-income households, schools, and hospitals.

A further $500m should be provided annually, they said, to incentivise the take-up of energy efficiency improvements by able-to-pay households. The group estimates that targeted incentive schemes could unlock five times as much private investment in home upgrades, creating thousands of jobs in the process.

Finally, a further £2.3bn should be invested in a public-private financing plan that can spur the installation of 10 million heat pumps in homes before the end of decade, the group said.

Today's appeal comes less than a week after reports emerged suggesting the government was considering watering down its £9.2bn upgrade programme, after sources indicted the Prime Minister's top advisor Dominic Cummings regarded building upgrades as "boring" and was in favour of shifting the funding to support new housebuilding projects.

Crispin Truman, chief executive of CPRE, urged the government to implement its planned Future Homes Standard - currently scheduled for 2025 - as soon as possible. "The chancellor has a real opportunity to turn this around to create new green jobs, especially in hard hit rural communities, while helping to get us back on track in facing up to the climate crisis," he said. "Looking ahead, a Future Homes Standard is needed as soon as possible, so that new housing becomes part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Only then can the government claim to be building back better." 

In the letter, the charities stressed that heat pumps, rather than hydrogen, should be the government's main medium-term focus for the decarbonisation of heating.

They argued that while the government should invest in the development of green hydrogen for use by heavy industry and freight, it "does not make economic or environmental sense to use hydrogen to heat the majority of the buildings on the gas network".

They also warned blue hydrogen, sourced from methane with a carbon capture and storage (CCS) system fitted to bury the emissions, is not "net zero compatible" at the scale required for heating buildings, due to the high level of greenhouse gas emissions that leak from the gas supply chain.

The argument echoes that put forward by British Gas parent company Centrica in a briefing document this week, which similarly argued that heat pumps should be the main focus of heat decarbonisation efforts in the short to medium term.

However, a number of leading gas network firms have put forward an alternative plan to policymakers in recent months, arguing that switching the existing gas network to hydrogen and biomethane provides a more cost-effective long term route for decarbonising heating. 

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• Topics
• Buildings
• Energy
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• Energy Efficiency
• heat pumps
• Green recovery