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How to decarbonise heat for UK homes

Energy World; 13/11/2020

The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee has launched an inquiry examining the path to decarbonising heating in homes.

The Committee will examine the government’s upcoming buildings and heat strategy and investigate the policies, priorities and timelines needed to decarbonise heating in residential buildings and help ensure the UK gets on track to deliver net zero by 2050.

The Committee’s inquiry follows a pitch by occasional Energy World contributor Dr Jan Rosenow, Principal and European Programme Director at the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), at the Committee’s hearings in July.

The inquiry is to examine areas such as the technological challenges to decarbonising heat, issues around network capacity and distributing costs, incentives, regulation and consumer engagement and protection, and how to co-ordinate and deliver low-carbon heating.

Domestic heat accounts for 13% of the UK’s annual emissions footprint – comparable to the contribution of all petrol and diesel cars, says the Committee, and less than 5% of the heat used across the UK’s 29mn homes is from low-carbon sources. Current incentives delivered via the Renewable Heat Incentive have encouraged very few households to switch to low-carbon heating. In 2018, 27,000 heat pumps were installed across the UK, compared to 1.7mn gas boilers.

Meanwhile, Mitsubishi Electric is supplying its UK-manufactured Ecodan air source heat pumps to OVO Energy for two government schemes that aim to showcase technologies that reduce carbon emissions associated with providing heat and hot water to UK homes and buildings.

The two schemes, the Zero Carbon Home Project and Zero Carbon Heating Trial are funded from by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) through its Energy Innovation Programme. The schemes see a combined government investment of £5.8mn worth of funding spread across nearly 300 sites across the UK, according to Mitsubishi.

News Item details

Journal title: Energy World

Countries: UK -

Organisation: Mitsubishi|Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy

Subjects: Heat, Decarbonisation