Public enthusiasm for heat pumps has been overestimated by ministers, putting the Government’s Net Zero goals at risk, spending watchdog the National Audit Office has warned. The Telegraph has more.
The National Audit Office (NAO) found that 27 times more gas boilers were installed in homes in 2022 as taxpayer-funded subsidies failed to spur demand.
In a report published on Monday it said the rollout of heat pumps has been “slower than planned” despite the fact they are a “key component” in meeting climate targets.
It comes just days after Claire Coutinho, the Energy Secretary, scrapped the so-called “boiler tax” which would have fined boiler makers if they failed to meet sales targets for heat pumps.
The policy, which has been delayed until after the election, was meant to encourage adoption but was seen as politically toxic as it would have pushed up the price of gas boilers.
Just 55,000 domestic heat pumps were installed in 2022, the NAO found, which is a fraction of the Government’s longer term aim of 600,000 installations per year by 2030.
By contrast about 1.5 million new gas-fired boilers were installed, mostly to replace worn-out models, even though homeowners could have chosen heat pumps instead.
The Government’s flagship Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which offers homeowners a grant to help them pay for the cost of a heat pump, has also underperformed, the NAO said. Just 18,900 heat pumps were installed between May 2022 and December 2023 under the scheme, less than half of the 50,000 installations that had been expected.
The NAO warned ministers were “relying on optimistic assumptions about consumer demand and manufacturer supply of heat pumps increasing substantially” to hit the 600,000 target.
It also said that to meet the Net Zero target installations would need to carry on rising at pace to reach 1.6 million a year by 2035.
Worth reading in full.
No wonder people don’t want heat pumps, says Ross Clark. They’re unreliable and cost a bomb. Yet they were supposedly going to be cheaper than gas boilers, he reminds us.
[Heat pumps] were all going to slash our bills as we switched from expensive gas to cheap-as-chips renewable energy from wind and solar farms. … Remember how Government grants were supposed to allow the industry to reach a scale at which prices would start to tumble? That’s not quite going according to plan. The average real-terms cost of a heat pump installation has actually risen over the past four years, from £10,328 in 2019 to £11,287 in 2023 (both at 2021 prices). It still costs four times as much to replace a gas boiler with a heat pump than with a like-for-like replacement.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Nothing will ever change without totally dismantling the health system as it stands, and I can’t see anyone getting to grips with that anytime soon. It doesn’t help that the NHS is seen as some kind of sacred cow that most people praise rather than criticise, despite the evidence in front of their eyes. I am willing to bet 50 to 60% of the management jobs, which often appear to duplicate each other, could be got rid of.
This coming winter…covid, blah blah blah, flu, blah blah blah – and of course it will all the the fault of the general public because they are thoughless enough to catch things, get sick and clutter up the wards. The NHS often has the knack of making you feel you are a nuisance, doesn’t it?
Cleansing the structural Blairism might already help.
Every problem that has afflicted this country since Bliar was encouraged to quit can be attributed to –
Tony Bliar.
That horrible, evil piece of crap will still be undermining this country even when he has been called to Satan’s side.
An interesting question would be how much direct influence he possibly still wields. Eg, both NHS management and the Tony Blair Institute favour the same policy decisions wrt the so-called pandemic. Is this really coincidence or is someone exploiting still existing person networks there?
Poor Satan.
…and Starmer now ‘channeling’ his inner Tony Blair, gawd help us.
Couldn’t agree with you more.
Doubtless there will be an outbreak of mask-enforcement and social distancing at hospitals this month. This will have two effects. First, it will increase the illusion that the NHS is battling with an unprecedented and overwhelming rise in Covid cases, thus diverting attention from the more fundamental long-term and systemic problems that the NHS faces. Secondly, it will provide renewed employment to the mask-bouncers at hospitals and to the installers of sticky-backed arrows and Perspex screens.
PS: it’s Thursday tomorrow; do we bangs saucepans, deploy rainbows or kneel?
Actually, I will be out with my neighbours tonight – not banging pans, just standing around chatting over a bottle or 2 of wine. Every cloud has a silver lining.
For as long as the NHS spends as much as £1 on general political agendas (eg, workforce diversity training instead of medical training), it’s obviously overfunded and throwing more money at it won’t improve anything.
I’ve just been for an x-ray at my local hospital this afternoon and I was not looking forward to it. I was expecting some meeter and greeter with mask and hand sanitiser, but there was none. So I walked in without a mask went to reception booked in. I was taken for an x-ray 10 minutes later and sent on my way without a glance or a word from any member of staff of whom there seemed to be plenty about. A strange experience.
Wow! How lovely! My last encounter with the NHS was in August. Two out of three chairs taped off, plastic screens everywhere & the demand to wear a mask from the reception staff. The HCA who did the pre consultant baselines of height, weight & bp was more than happy to take off hers as was the consultant! He even did a bare hands examination of muscle tone & reflexes.
It’s definitely coming from the top of each Trust. Sadly the compliance amongst the general population attending was high.
Lucky guy. My last few encounters with NHS (dentist and GP) have been very confrontational. Exhausting tbh. Seems to vary wildly though – and that just supports the fact that none of them know what the hell they’re doing or why.
I think you are just being unlucky. Neither my gp surgery nor my dentist (not NHS though) requires masks, and hasn’t done for many months. I think it’s just down to regional variation.
I made an appointment with my GP yesterday (I know what’s wrong and need a prescription-only cream) and the nearest time-slot available is 4 weeks away. And that’s in a small west country town, goodness only knows how long it would be if I lived in an overcrowded city.
From October last year. It’s the annual bleatings for more money etcetera.
As in education, too little money and capacity are not the problem, too much of it certainly is.
Instead, the real problems are attitude, ever worsening work ethics and commitment, internal politics and vested interests leading to now cemented misorganisation and mismanagement.
As with many departments, short term political appointments are subject to manipulation by established professional “servants” which are, in fact “complex and long lasting”. They tend to last long in their jobs, with a nice pension later on.
“The question on everyone’s tongue right now is will the NHS be in crisis this winter?”
Well, let me beg to differ – it’s certainly not a question on my tongue and the subject never entered my head. The opening statement is pure propoganda. Boll Ox.
Actually, the question on my tongue is; are we all going to be nuked into oblivion?
Putting rouge on the cheeks of a corpse. Again.
It is a State run industry. All State run industries fail – fact, backed by multiple examples in multiple Countries over the last Century – and they fail for precisely the same reason, they are State run, therefore they must primarily serve political objectives, secondly serve the interests of the unionised workers who are paid on length of service or grade rather than merit or industry – no incentive to work better/harder.
They cannot go bankrupt and have no shareholders therefore require no fiscal discipline and have no access to private capital. They are cost centres, so there us a perverse incentive to do less to keep within budget. They have no cost/price structure so efficiency/productivity cannot be measured,
There is no competition so consumers have no choice, Leviathan has no need to improve or serve consumer interests.
This will not, can not be changed until the monopoly is taken away and a competitive private market in health insurance and provision can develop.
Absolutely right on every point. Very well said.
Everyone says the NHS is much loved with its free at point of use, but it’s also almost unique in the world in the way it is funded and centrally managed.
Most European systems are to a certain extent ‘private’ in that they’re not managed by central government.
The question is, can a government in the UK change to the European model without too much push back from all the vested interests? Probably not, but one of them really needs to try as the current system of just increasing the money put in is clearly not working.
The other feature that is often not well understood is that some specialists in various roles are available to work for third party private firms, or for themselves, part time. Often in non-NHS buildings just next door, or even in the same building in smaller outfits, such as dental surgeries.
This is relatively unusual in other industries – after all, many contracts do not permit one to work for competitors while employed by a particular firm, for good reasons in most situations.
I am sure face masks worn all day by staff make them feel so much happier and securer in their jobs and the reintroduction of social distancing and other Covid protocols should leave all staff with so much more time for the latest diversity course.