Green Homes Grant
“Today’s Heat and Buildings Strategy is a good start, though it doesn’t provide the full set of policies we need to get the built environment on track for net zero,” Comments Gillian Charlesworth, CEO of BRE, world leaders in built environment innovations.
The need to lower UK carbon emissions is immediate if we have any chance of meeting our net zero 2050 target. Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP) are a well-established technology that offer significant carbon savings when compared to gas or oil central heating. ASHP’s are far more efficient than other electric heating systems, producing as much as four times more heat than the electricity they use.
The PV installations were installed under the Local Authority Delivery of the Green Homes Grant, the only segment of the scheme that is both still running and that PV is eligible for.
Meeting the criteria
More Green Homes Grant
Following the announcement that the Green Homes Grant would close to new applications on 31st March, Griff Thomas from GTEC has urged heating installers look beyond government consumer initiatives and keep faith in renewable technology as the future of heat in the UK.
Jose Alves, UK country manager for Panasonic commented: ‘Panasonic had welcomed the UK Government’s scheme to help the sector and to help reach its net zero targets. We therefore have no hesitation in continuing with both our Green Cashback schemes to help both installers and homeowners to make the switch to renewable air source heat pumps, in a bid to help homeowners to decarbonise their homes and become more energy efficient.’
Once the centrepiece of Boris Johnson’s promise to ‘build back greener’, the £1.5bn programme, offering households grants of up to £10,000 to install insulation or low-carbon heating, leaves the UK without a plan for tackling one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and leaves the government falling short on its promise to create tens of thousands of green jobs.
Three hundred local authorities across England and Scotland will share the £562m package to fund upgrades to some of the nation’s least energy efficient and fuel-poor homes. The funding will enable investments in low-income households and those living in social houses to solutions such as insulation and replacing gas boilers with low-carbon alternatives, such as heat pumps. As well as benefiting 50,000 households, the Government claims it will also support more than 8,000 energy sector jobs, such as plumbers or builders.
In January 2013, almost 8 years ago, I wrote an article for this very magazine about my belief that 2013 was the ‘Year of the Heat Pump’. As I’m sure many would agree, it turned out that 2013 however, wasn’t to be that year. Whilst it was indeed a very good year for heat pump installations (approx 17,000 installations covering ground and air source), it certainly wasn’t the magic year I believed it would become. Looking back, it’s been really interesting to see the changes in the landscape since the article all those years ago.
Last week we reported the rumours circling the industry that the Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme (GHGVS) will be scrapped, leaving jobs in jeopardy. The industry has been waiting for the budget announcement to see if the rumour mill churned out some truth.
Further Reading
Rumours have surfaced today that the Green Home Grant Voucher Scheme (GHGVS) will be scrapped in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s budget announcement, coming next week. Highlighted by nearly 20 organisations representing or working within energy efficiency and low carbon heating sector, scrapping the scheme will put jobs in jeopardy and endanger the UK’s abilities to reach net zero targets at risk.
Premature closure of the Green Homes Grant Scheme would put jobs in jeopardy, dash the dreams of homeowners and put the UK’s Net Zero target at significant risk
Whilst the Green Homes Grant has come in for a great deal of criticism, and has struggled to attract installers, partly because of the terms and conditions, and partly because of the apparent failings in its administration, the scheme has successfully raised consumer awareness of heat pump technology to a level that no other intervention to date has achieved.
On 8th February the Government reluctantly admitted that it had issued just 20,000 GHG vouchers since the scheme began in Autumn 2020, immediately hampering efforts towards the PM’s ambitious 600,000 heat pump installations per year by 2028. Then just days later the situation was exacerbated when it was announced that hundreds of millions of pounds would be withdrawn from the scheme entirely.
Panasonic are currently offering installers £800 and their customers an additional £600 as part of their Green Install Cashback Scheme and Green Homes Cashback scheme.
It has been just over three months since the government’s Green Homes Grant was rolled out for consumers and installers alike, yet the scheme has already been beset by teething problems. The most pressing issue is that of installer uptake and availability. Under its terms, installers must be Trustmark, PAS or MCS certified to carry out the eligible home improvements; however, consumer demand for the scheme has seemingly outstripped supply.
Building services training provider, GTEC, in partnership with the MCS, has won an almost £1M bid to help existing trades people access discounted training in heat pumps and solar thermal, in order to meet the demand presented by the Green Homes Grant (GHG) – the government’s scheme to improve the energy efficiency of UK housing stock.
Phil Hurley, managing director of NIBE UK commented; “The annual total for installations is 30,000 currently, so a massive ramp up is needed as well as up-skilling of existing plumbers and heating engineers to achieve the numbers needed for net zero targets.”
The Prime Minister’s 10 Point Plan has offered significant optimism to those working across the low carbon heating industry according to NIBE Energy Systems. The Green Homes Grant scheme, which launched in September, is a much-needed intervention for homeowners and installers and the news of its one-year extension has been very positively received.
Depending on what you read, the Government’s hastily deployed Green Homes Grant is either a quick win for both energy conscious home owners and installers alike, or an ill-executed appeasement plan to divert attention from the perpetually delayed Energy White Paper.
A survey conducted by MCS has revealed that almost half of their certified contractors believe that the Green Homes Grant should be extended to 18 months or more.
Homeowners in England will be entitled to vouchers to install the technology under the Green Homes Grants scheme.
The latest government update opening the new Green Homes Grant scheme up to domestic renewable technology installations including Heat Pumps and Solar Thermal, places MCS certified contractors at its core to ensure quality.
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