Government’s heat strategy aims for decarbonisation ...

Government’s heat strategy aims for decarbonisation
The government has set out its vision for cutting emissions from heating homes, businesses and industry in the decades ahead. Its Heat Strategy sets out the long-term challenges and opportunities on the pathway to decarbonisation and asks specific questions, including seeking views about future policy options.
The scale of the challenge is huge, says the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC):
almost half of the energy consumed in the UK is used to generate heat for buildings and water, in cooking food and manufacturing goods or to keep offices and homes cool in hot weather; and
the vast majority of the UK’s heat is produced by burning fossil fuels ¬¬- currently around a third of the UK’s carbon emissions come from the energy used to produce heat, more, that is, than from generating electricity
The Heat Strategy builds on the government’s Carbon Plan, which was published last December. It looks at heat use across the different sectors in the economy, provides supporting evidence and real-life case studies and asks specific questions on future policy options. Achieving this transition to low carbon heat will mean changes across the UK’s economy over the coming decades, with different solutions required in different areas.
As the Carbon Plan set out, the strategy is split into three different stages:
This decade - government’s focus for both buildings and industry will be on energy efficiency and preparing the market by driving early take up of renewable heat, building the supply chain and supporting innovation.
The 2020s and 2030s - uptake of low carbon heat technologies will need to be widespread in homes and businesses. Government’s focus will be on creating the right frameworks to support the market and minimise costs to consumers and industry.
The long term - the government will increasingly focus on helping consumers and businesses tackle more challenging areas of low carbon heat where more innovation may be needed.