“Government’s heat pump scheme had a really disappointing first year”

The Chair of the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee spoke to ELN about the findings of an investigation into the Boiler Upgrade Scheme

The government’s flagship Boiler Upgrade Scheme has had a really disappointing takeup of grants in the first year.

That’s the suggestion from Baroness Parminter, Chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee in the House of Lords who spoke to ELN highlighting the need to get the scheme back on track.

Baroness Parminter said: “We don’t think that it’s unsalvageable, but if the government were to look at issues around raising consumer awareness around the lack of installers, around mixed messages, around hydrogen and some of the smaller things in terms of restrictive planning laws and the facts that EPCs aren’t really incentivising heat pumps we think this boiler upgrade scheme could be put back on track.

“But the government’s get to get on and do it right now.”

In a letter sent to Lord Callanan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Committee warned that if the current take-up rate continues, only half of the allocated budget will be used to help households switch to low carbon heating systems and a healthy market of installers and manufacturers will not be in place in time to implement low-carbon heating policy measures smoothly.

Therefore, the government’s 2028 target of 600,000 installations per year is very unlikely to be met, the committee has said. 

Click the podcast to listen to the full interview.

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