A heat pump in the garden of a house in Germany. Great Britain also wants to switch to more heat pumps (symbolic image). © IMAGO/Silas Stein
The British government wants to boost demand for heat pumps with subsidies, while the supply side is to be boosted with the help of penalties. This causes controversy.
London – In Germany, the traffic light coalition has been arguing for weeks about the new heating law. In Great Britain, too, the topic of heat pumps is suitable as an exciter. In order to increase the number of these heating systems, London is considering a heat pump quota. If manufacturers do not comply, they would have to pay up to £5,000 in fines per case, the Financial Times newspaper reported on Sunday (4 June). There is resistance in the heating industry.
There are 1,5 heat pumps for every 55.000 million gas boilers: government now wants quota for manufacturers
The world is fighting climate change. Great Britain is also striving to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 and is relying on heat pumps, among other things. So far, gas boilers have been commonplace in British private households. The government in London wants to install 2028,600 heat pumps per year by 000. Looking at figures from the past, this seems like an ambitious goal: In 2021, private households installed 1.5 million gas boilers, but only 55,000 heat pumps, as The Guardian reported in April. In terms of population, Great Britain is even at the bottom of Europe when it comes to the installation of heat pumps, according to the European Heat Pump Association.
Great Britain now wants to make some adjustments on the manufacturer side in order to accelerate the installation of environmentally friendly heating systems. For this, London provides for a certain quota of installed heat pumps in relation to gas boilers. From next year, fines of up to £5,000 per missing heat pump will be possible if the companies do not meet the requirement. The idea is causing outrage in the heating industry, because from the manufacturers' point of view, the quotas simply cannot be met.
On the one hand, this is due to the shortage of skilled workers, so the argument goes. According to estimates by the innovation agency Nesta, the number of installers would have to increase by 2028 percent to 800,27 by 000 to meet the quota. On the other hand, the penalties would drive up costs for consumers, the manufacturer said. Vaillant UK, one of the leading manufacturers, has already announced that it will reconsider its investment plans in the UK if the government implements the quota system.
These are the reasons for the low acceptance of heat pumps in the UK
The gas network in the UK is well developed and historically heavily used. "Boilers have become very popular in the UK and people have become accustomed to them. There is a fear of the unknown, and some of these fears are unfounded," Dave Sowden of energy consultancy Gemserv told the Guardian. Accordingly, the British government is trying to nudge its citizens in the right direction with a subsidy of up to 5,000 pounds (about 5,800 euros) per heat pump. The £450 million funding programme is expected to boost demand, but has so far met with a restrained response. In the current financial year, London offered its citizens 30,000 such grants, of which, according to the Guardian, only 11,996 have been applied for and 9,981 have been redeemed so far.
But it's not just the heating habits of British citizens that are to blame. A parliamentary report by the Environment and Climate Change Committee cites the lack of public information and a lack of independent advice as further reasons for the faltering implementation of the British heating transition. After all, a planned change in energy taxes has the potential to accelerate the installation of heat pumps. In addition, a price war between energy suppliers could reduce the cost of installation. The utility Octopus Energy announced that it is currently training hundreds of new installers and, in cooperation with Renewable Energy Devices, announced that it will produce around 1,000 heat pumps per month. Meanwhile, the biggest competitor British Gas set the starting price for the heat pump installation one pound cheaper than its competitor Octopus.
