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I’m sure the last thing Sir Keir Starmer needs right now is “helpful” advice from me. But my editor insists and he has contacts, so I’ve been asked to give a few thoughts on what the new government can do for the heat pump industry.
If we assume that the new government is pro-heat pumps, I guess the first place to start would be to try and get some more installed: Installing 60,000 a year is woeful and embarrassing, especially given there were 1,800,000 boilers sold in the UK last year.
There are some quick wins which would make life easier: get rid of planning permission and make the electrical connections easier by doing away with the DNO application. This would be cheap and easy and would help a bit.
In newbuild houses you don’t get a grant for installing a heat pump, so scrapping the need to do any of the MCS paperwork for a newbuild would help installations this sector to be leaner and quicker.
We also need to persuade housing developers to do more than the bare minimum with insulation and renewable technologies. This could be done cheaply and simply – just make the developers pay the first three years’ worth of energy bills for every new build house, that will focus the attention on energy and carbon saving.
Banning bans
When it comes to making people change from one technology to another, I’m not a fan of banning anything. It looks like the new Energy Minister, Mr Miliband, doesn’t like bans either.
But I believe if a technology is good enough, it will win over the people. Example, fax machines worked fine, but email killed them off. Email is just better. If heat pumps are not better and we as an industry can’t come up with a good enough reason for people to want to invest in this technology, maybe we should consider that they might not be the right thing to buy. Alternatively, we could come up with some better arguments to convince people to buy them.
Bribing people with a “grant” to take the technology is also a bad idea, because when the bribes stop everyone moans and people learn to rely on them. So, I would also like to see the Boiler Upgrade Scheme changed.
All it has achieved so far is that it has pushed up the price of heat pump installations. I don’t blame installers: if there is a load of free money sloshing around, why not make a killing?
The BUS makes me laugh: when you hear someone moan about people getting benefits just for sitting at home, you should reflect that that is exactly what we are doing – getting free dosh for filling in a form. I suggest we officially rename it the Heat Pump Benefit Scheme.
Next, I would recommend the introduction of a Recommended Retail Price for heat pumps and heat pumps installations. Example: a 14kW heat pump with a 300 litre cylinder should be installed for an RRP of £x and an 8 kW one for an RRP of £y. This can all done in a nice simple matrix that everyone, including homeowners, can see.
If, and only if, this price is met, you get the Heat Pump Benefit grant (BUS). But if you want to charge any more than the RRP, then no grant.
Another positive initiative would be for the government to assist (or encourage) the energy companies to offer cheaper electricity tariffs to people with heat pumps. That would make them cheaper to run so people would want them more.
I’m sure some of these suggestions will be unpopular in some quarters, but something needs to be done. Perhaps Ed Miliband will read this and show these radical ideas to Keir. Look out for me on the next taskforce.
