The British government has just revealed more details on its spending plans to improve the energy efficiency of homes and businesses, which includes an extra £1.5 billion ($1.89 billion) to support the Boiler Upgrade Scheme from 2025-2028 and extra help for up to 200,000 badly-insulated buildings and low income households. The statement confirms that the government is committed to spend £12.6 billion ($15.91) by 2028, with £6 billion ($7.58 billion) previously announced in 2022 now allocated to the below schemes:
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The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), allocated a further £1.5 billion ($1.89 billion) to support families in England and Wales move away from gas to energy efficient, low-carbon heat pumps
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A new £400 million ($505.29 million) energy efficiency grant, launching in 2025, for households in England to make improvements such as bigger radiators or better insulation
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The Social Housing Decarbonization Fund, allocated £1.25 billion ($1.58 million) to support up to 140,000 social homes to be insulated or retrofitted, improving energy performance and lowering bills
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A new local authority retrofit scheme, allocated £500 million ($632 million) to support up to 60,000 low-income and cold homes, including those off the gas grid, with measures such as insulation
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The Green Heat Network Fund, allocated £485 million ($613 million) to help up to 60,000 homes and buildings access affordable, low carbon heating through new heat networks, reducing our use of fossil fuels and providing more reliable heating
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The Heat Network Efficiency Scheme, allocated £45 million ($56.9 million) to improve around 100 existing heat networks, in a move that will reduce bills and improve reliability
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The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, allocated £225 million ($284.6 million), will continue to help businesses transition to a low-carbon future
Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt says, “This investment will support households and businesses across the country to make greener choices in a way that doesn’t add a burden to working people. Investing in energy efficiency combined with energy security, is the only way to stop ourselves being at the mercy of international gas prices, one of the main drivers of inflation.” Here we see the British Government highlighting the issue of gas prices, which is one of the main drivers of fuel poverty in the UK, which is struggling to provide energy supplies at an affordable cost to consumers.
The allocation of more funding to support the deployment of heat pumps has been welcomed by the Heat Pump Association (HPA), but the HPA has also called on the government to address the price of electricity to further stimulate the market.
Commenting on the announcement, Charlotte Lee, Chief Executive of the Heat Pump Association says, “It shows a clear commitment to supporting the deployment of heat pumps and is equivalent to a 240% uplift in current annual funding. The popularity of the BUS since the grant uplift in October 2023, has demonstrated the public understands the benefits of moving away from fossil fuels to heat pumps and will commit to changing the way they heat their homes when it makes financial sense to do so. We call on the Government to urgently take meaningful steps to reduce the price of electricity, in line with their commitments, to further support the economic case for change and to enable meaningful, sustainable growth in heat pump installations.”
The UK government is making efforts to insulate its buildings, which are among the worst-insulated in Europe, and this will benefit both users of energy, but also utilities as the producing capacity and grid network has been under strain over the last few winters. Some pundits believe a long, cold winter will cause considerable problems, including blackouts and brownouts in these circumstances. Reducing demand through the measures above will be a lot quicker to implement than adding new power plants or upgrading the distribution system.