The government has said it will enhance the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) marketing campaign to increase awareness and uptake of heat pumps among consumers.
Lord Callanan, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, has responded to a letter from the Environment and Climate Change Committee regarding the BUS.
The letter, sent on 22nd February, prompted Lord Callanan to write to Baroness Parminter with a response.
Lord Callanan has revealed that the effectiveness of the BUS marketing campaign will be closely monitored through pre- and post-campaign polling and performance data analysis.
He said that this will help evaluate the success of the campaign, identify lessons learned, and consider the next steps for marketing.
Lord Callanan said: “The data so far suggests that the campaign is meetings its objectives of raising consumer awareness and understanding of heat pumps and of the BUS.
“The independent evaluation of the scheme will seek to add further insights about the effectiveness of the marketing campaign by exploring how BUS property owners heard about the scheme. We will extend and enhance the current marketing campaign to increase consumer awareness and take-up.”
In response to the letter, Baroness Parminter, Chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee, said: “We welcome the government’s response to the Committee’s BUS inquiry findings and their acknowledgement of our concerns with the progress of the scheme.
“We are pleased that they have extended the BUS to 2028 and acted on a number of our other recommendations, particularly investing in training more heat pump installers, consulting on whether to make a change to the EPC requirements for the installation of heat pumps under the scheme, and a review of heat pump planning rules.
“The commitment to enhance the current marketing campaign is also welcome, but it remains unclear as to its scale and whether it will be sufficient to address the woeful lack of awareness of the scheme and why we need to switch to this mature net zero home heating technology.”
