Insulation specialists unhappy with heat pump grant changes
Posted: Thursday, April 25th, 2024
The government’s boiler upgrade scheme offers grants of up to £7,500 to people who scrap their old fossil-fuel boiler and install a heat pump, according to The Construction Index. However, up until now, the installation of cavity wall and loft insulation has been a condition of entitlement to a grant, since without effective insulation the effectiveness of a heat pump is impaired (as it is with any boiler, but more so). The government wants to roll out 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028. In 2022, 5,000 heat pumps were sold in the UK – compared to 620,000 in France, which has a very similar population. Concerned about the slow take-up of heat pumps, the government ran a consultation last year on changes to the boiler upgrade scheme. It increased maximum grants from £5,000 to £7,500 and dropped the requirement for insulation. The latter measure reduces heat pump installation costs by up to £2,500 for a semi-detached property, according to government data. Changes to the boiler upgrade scheme via scheme regulations when parliamentary time allows. It will continue to be government guidance to install loft and cavity wall insulation measures where there are EPC recommendations, but these will no longer be mandated. External wall insulation specialist Alsecco says that this is “short-sighted” and “undermines the impact that carbon reduction initiatives will have in the long term, instead reinforcing a ‘fabric first’ approach as the most effective way to cut energy consumption on a long-term basis”.
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