Government pushes UK households to ditch gas boilers with £450m upgrade scheme
The government is encouraging households to swap fossil fuel boilers for low carbon alternatives with a £450m upgrade scheme.
Households will now benefit from £5,000 government grants to install low carbon technologies such as a hydrogen-ready boiler or a heat pump.
The grants will be available from next April, and will mean consumers will pay the same as they would to install a traditional gas boiler.
The energy industry will work with the government to meet the aim of heat pumps costing the same to buy and run as fossil fuel boilers by 2030.
It expects cost reductions of between a quarter and a half by 2025 as the market expands and technology develops.
The announcement follows the government’s plans to ban gas boilers by 2035.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is part of more than £3.9bn of new funding allocated by the government to decarbonise buildings.
It has now set out its plans to incentivise people to install low-carbon heating systems in its Heat and Buildings Strategy.
Alongside switching boilers, the £3.9bn will fund three years of investment in the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, the Home Upgrade Grant scheme, the Heat Networks Transformation Programme and in reducing carbon emissions from public buildings through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.
The government argues that removing old boilers will significantly reduce the UK’s dependency on fossil fuels and shield the country from the consequences of global energy spikes.
It also believes that shifting to a low carbon future could support up to 240,000 jobs across the UK over the next 14 years.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “As we clean up the way we heat our homes over the next decade, we are backing our brilliant innovators to make clean technology like heat pumps as cheap to buy and run as gas boilers – supporting thousands of green jobs.”
Business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng added, “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. ”