The boiler upgrade scheme had a budget of £150m to fund 30,000 heat pump installations in England and Wales. At the end of its first year, fewer than 10,000 households had received their £5,000 subsidy voucher.
The scheme’s £90m unspent budget will now be returned to the Treasury.
Commenting on the scheme’s failure, Mike Foster, chief executive of the boiler maker’s trade body Energy & Utilities Alliance (EUA), said: “It takes a certain type of genius to fail to give away £150m of taxpayers’ money and this wretched scheme looks like it has done just that. When will the government actually listen to the people, the majority of whom simply cannot afford a heat pump, subsidised or not.
“The scheme is simply a taxpayer handout to those who don’t need it, to keep the secretly funded heat pump lobby quiet. It does little for carbon saving compared to investment on insulation. It does not help people keep bills low. It takes from the poor to give to the wealthy and it is an embarrassment of a policy.
“More taxpayer-subsidised heat pumps have probably been fitted in Cornish holiday homes than the whole of Britain’s second city, Birmingham. That is shameful. People are still hurting with high energy bills, insulating the homes of those most in need should be the priority, not giving hard-earned taxpayers’ cash to those who were going to buy a heat pump anyway. It’s utterly wasteful.
“There was a time when a Conservative government took pride in being fiscally prudent with taxpayers’ money. Now they just ladle out the cash on a green spending spree. What makes this profligacy even worse is that insulation measures could save more carbon, keep bills down and provide a sound economic investment for the Treasury.”
Kevin Mcguane, energy services director at property maintenance specialist DMA Group, said the government should be focus on the refurbishment of buildings to reduce energy bills. He said: “To meet our national net zero targets we need both innovation and diverse solutions, not a rush for expensive heat pump alternatives. It’s a dilemma for most homeowners and small businesses who genuinely want to play their part. The capital costs involved in replacing a conventional gas boiler with a heat pump are huge by comparison. Even with a government grant, the cost of a heat pump is typically twice that of a conventional gas boiler. Not to mention the very long lead times to buy and install this renewable technology. These challenges are magnified by the exceptional macro-economic and geo-political events that currently conspire to compound our net zero objectives. The one characteristic that does support carbon reduction/demand reduction are the increases in energy bills. The government must support energy demand reduction with grants towards better insulation, double glazing, LED lighting, and better heating controls. Controls such as absence and presence detection can also ensure that lights are not left on.”
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