‘Substantial gap’ between Government insulation targets and supply
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he Government is on monitor to insulate only one sixth of the houses wanted to fulfill its goal of decreasing power consumption by 15%, in line with a brand new evaluation.
WWF UK and ScottishPower stated there’s a “substantial gap” rising between what’s on target to be delivered and what’s wanted to achieve the Government’s goal.
As effectively as 5 million extra houses insulated by 2030, the evaluation – carried out by Frontier Economics – estimates that 1.5 million houses will want warmth pumps as a substitute of fuel boilers with an extra 600,000 houses related to low-carbon warmth networks.
The Government has made £288 million obtainable as a part of its Green Heat Network Fund, which awards money to these constructing techniques that take warmth from air, photo voltaic or geothermal power and supply it to a number of houses, eradicating the necessity for particular person fuel boilers.
WWF and ScottishPower, who commissioned the report, stated the Government must step up its plans and speed up its supply with a purpose to attain extra houses earlier than the top of the last decade.
Insulating hundreds of thousands extra houses is significant for the Government to fulfill its power effectivity goal and may gain advantage households to the tune of a whole lot of kilos yearly
The evaluation comes after analysis from the 2 organisations discovered that houses made environment friendly and geared up with a spread of low-carbon applied sciences resembling photo voltaic panels and EV chargers might save as much as £2,300 a 12 months on their power payments in comparison with these with out.
Isabella O’Dowd, head of local weather coverage at WWF, stated: “We know insulating homes protects consumers from high energy bills and we can’t wait until winter – summer is the time to fix the roof.
“With our homes accounting for 16% of the UK’s carbon emissions, the UK Government must act now and tell us how it will insulate the extra five million homes it needs to keep us on track to meet its green ambitions and drive down bills.
“Insulating millions more homes is vital for the Government to meet its energy efficiency target and could benefit households to the tune of hundreds of pounds every year.”
A House of Lords committee stated in February that the Government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme was failing due to a scarcity of installers, lack of public consciousness, excessive set up and upkeep prices and deceptive messaging in regards to the feasibility of hydrogen for dwelling heating.
Accelerating motion now to realize this goal will assist extra households to cut back their heating payments sooner
WWF and ScottishPower’s report additionally discovered that for a 20% discount in power consumption by 2030 – which they stated was more likely to be nearer to the Climate Change Committee’s Net Zero Balanced Pathway – 5.4 million houses would require insulation, 1.4 million would wish warmth pumps and an extra 1.4 million must be related to shared warmth networks.
Robert McGaughey, head of sensible warmth at ScottishPower, stated: “We were pleased when the UK Government set a new target for reducing energy consumption from homes by 15% by the end of the decade – and this report from Frontier Economics highlights the scale of the task ahead.
“It shows that delivery needs speeding up and support scaling up. Planned polices need to come off the drawing board and be actioned, and some new policies are needed too.
“Accelerating action now to achieve this target will help more households to reduce their heating bills sooner.
“In all of this, there needs to be a strong focus on delivering a whole house approach to those on low incomes, combining insulation improvements with greener heating options such as efficient heat pumps.
“There is no time to waste in filling the gap and ScottishPower is ready to play its part.”
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson stated: “The Government’s record on energy efficiency speaks for itself, with the proportion of homes in England with an EPC rating of C or above up from 14% in 2010 to 47% in 2022.
“Our Boiler Upgrade Scheme provides grants of up to £6,000 towards the upfront cost of installing a heat pump and we are fully confident we will meet our target of 600,000 heat pumps installations by 2028.
“What’s more, an additional 300,000 of the UK’s least energy efficient homes are in line for improvement under the new Great British Insulation Scheme, and we have committed £6.6 billion towards upgrades this parliament with a further £6 billion from 2025.”