SUSTAINABLE FUEL
www.heatingandventilating.net
Will future heat plans leave rural homes out of pocket?
Much has been said and written in recent months about the Government’s ambitious decarbonisation plans with a renewed focus on heat pumps at a primary heat source. But oil and LPG trade bodies believes this puts 1.5 million predominantly off-grid rural households in a predicament. Here they explain their thinking, while one manufacturer explores the benefits of the environmentally-friendly bioLPG as a main fuel source. Also see pg 30 & 31
LIQUID GAS UK
Chief executive George Webb
“The Government’s pledge to cut carbon admissions by 78% before 2035 has led to a renewed focus on decarbonising homes. Heating buildings currently accounts for 20% of UK’s carbon emissions, making the introduction of low carbon heating an integral part of the Government’s decarbonisation strategy. As part of this strategy the Government has committed to a target of installing 600,000 heat pumps each year by 2028. However, this one-size- fits-all approach ignores the specific needs of the 1.5million rural households that are off the gas grid in the UK. Currently, off-grid homes rely on LPG, oil or coal for their heating. Switching these homes to a heat pump is often not simple nor an affordable solution. With many homes that are off-grid being old and hard to heat, the level of insultation required will be hugely expensive for those homeowners. A recent survey conducted by Opinium on behalf
of Liquid Gas UK, revealed that more than nine in 10 (93%) of off-grid households would not be able to afford to decarbonise their heating system through a heat pump. This is no surprise given that a heat pump can cost between £11k -18K . In fact, only 3% of rural households felt that this cost represented value for money. However, the Government is continuing to pursue a one-size-fits-all approach and recommending heat pumps despite the costs.
Even with significant support, the recent failure of the £1.5 billion Green Homes Grant is evidence that financial incentives alone won’t get consumers over the line. nine in 10 (87%) consumers living off-grid in rural areas believe that the Government should support multiple low-carbon technologies, allowing residents to choose the best one for them. Another reality is that older properties
are not as efficient at retaining heat, so homeowners will also have to consider the costs of retrofitting and increasing insulation. Many older houses are simply not architecturally designed for heat pumps and the space they take up, meaning many homeowners will need invasive work done on their houses. Data from Savills has revealed that the average cost for a home to install the insulation needed to receive an EPC C rating is at least £12,746, in some cases it can be upwards of £26,000. Our research showed that three in five rural households are concerned about the disruption needed to install an electrified heating system. In contrast, switching from LPG to bioLPG will cost
nothing as it is a drop in fuel that can use the existing heating systems in place. This will benefit rural homeowners who already use LPG, as well as making it easy for those using more carbon intensive fuels such as oil and coal to switch over to LPG, knowing they can easily transition to bioLPG in the future. The upcoming Heat & Buildings Strategy is set to bring in a ‘one size fits all’ system on rural homes. The Government’s current approach does not allow
for rural homeowners to make their own decision on how they want to heat their homes in the future and finding a solution that works for them. Clearly this is a grudging issue for many with nine in 10 homeowners feeling that the Government is not listening to their views on decarbonisation. The Government’s approach could become even
more punitive to rural homeowners than it is now. The Scottish Government is currently considering proposals which would restrict the sales of homes below an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of C and Westminster has recently consulted on proposals which could make mortgage lending less favourable for ‘poorer performing homes’. This will disproportionately impact rural off-grid
homes which receive lower EPC ratings due to the cost of the fuel that they are using, in practice this means that identical homes can have varying EPC ratings, with mains gas getting you the best score. This will likely see rural homeowners forced to spend thousands more to get an EPC rating of C than they need to. It’s right that the Government continue to set
evermore ambitious targets to tackle the climate emergency. Decarbonising heating of homes will go a long way to help meet those ambitions, but the one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. The uniqueness of rural homes must be recognised and with it, the acceptance that the decarbonisation of the countryside is not going to work through heat pumps alone. Homeowners must simply be given a choice on how they want to heat their homes and an equal playing field to how the energy efficiency of their homes is measured.”
28 June 2021
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