Rising wholesale gas prices urged government to ‘double down’ on renewable heating technologies in this week’s Heat and Buildings Strategy.
Business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “Recent volatile global gas prices have highlighted the need to double down on our efforts to reduce Britain’s reliance on fossil fuels and move away from gas boilers over the coming decade to protect consumers in long term.
“As the technology improves and costs plummet over the next decade, we expect low carbon heating systems will become the obvious, affordable choice for consumers. Through our new grant scheme, we will ensure people are able to choose a more efficient alternative in the meantime.”
According to the government, industry leaders expect electric heat pumps will cost the same as gas boilers to buy and run in the coming years.
To ensure electric heat pumps will be no more expensive to run than gas boilers, ministers would also set reduce the price of electricity over the next decade, by shifting levies away from electricity to gas, the statement added.
Greg Jackson, CEO and founder of Octopus Energy, said: “This is just the beginning. By scaling up the technology and supply chain in Britain, innovative companies like ours will soon be able to fit and run heat pumps without any government support, bringing us one step closer to making the UK the Silicon Valley of Energy and creating thousands of clean energy jobs throughout the country.
“Electric heat pumps are more efficient, safer and cleaner than gas boilers and can help make homes more comfortable with less energy. Today we’ve crossed a massive milestone in our fight against climate change and to reduce Britain’s reliance on expensive, dirty gas.”
A new £60m Heat Pump Ready innovation programme was also announced, to provide funding for innovation to make the systems “smaller, easier to install and cheaper to run over the coming years”, the government statement added.