Good Energy wades into row over EUA “lobbying to slow heat pumps“

A major all-renewables supplier has stepped into allegations that trade body the Energy & Utilities Alliance has been influencing ministers to delay Britain’s rollout of electric heat pumps.

Good Energy’s policy head Kit Dixon issued a statement responding to a report in yesterday’s Guardian alleging that the EUA has been seeking to influence ministers away from electric heat, and instead towards gas technologies, particularly hydrogen, more easily supplied by its boiler-producing members.

The government has a target of 600,000 electric heat pumps installed in UK homes by 2026.   But deployment last year was less than 30,000 units.

Good Energy has sold renewable-sourced electricity since the early 2000s, later adding biogas.  Two years ago the Chippenham-based firm began installing heat pumps.

Yesterday the Guardian reported that investigators at DeSmog had uncovered a EUA draft which it claimed, rebuffed ministers’ desire to introduce fines from 2024 on makers of gas- or oil-fuelled boilers if they fail to meet quotas for heat pump installations.

Ministers proposed the quota in March, as part of their consultations with industry on a new market mechanism speeding uptake of electric heat.   D-ESNZ is worried that heat pump installations are lagging badly behind the Johnson government’s intention to have 600,000 devices heating homes and factories by 2028.

As revealed by DeSmog and the Guardian, the EUA’s draft response to the consultation was that ministers’ favoured deadline 2024 was “unachievable”.  It calculated that, unless pushed back to 2026, it would result in fines of £300 million for makers of high-carbon boilers.

In its draft response, officials wrote: “The EUA does not believe that the proposed clean heat market mechanism will achieve its stated aims with the policy as currently designed. The central proposal that boiler manufacturers are able to dictate the products homeowners install in their homes is flawed.”

DeSmog alleges the response was of a part with a two-year campaign commissioned by the EUA from WPR, a Birmingham public affairs agency, seeking to subject heat pumps to intense criticism.

Under D-ESNZ’s consultation on the clean heat market mechanism, which closed last month, ministers are proposing that, from 2024, manufacturers of fossil fuel boilers will face a quota for heat pump installations, relative to their sales of gas or oil boilers. Failing to sell enough of the electric technology will result in fines.

But in its draft response, obtained by DeSmog and seen by the Guardian, the EUA says the 2024 deadline is “unachievable”, due to the short timeframe, and the potential cost of the fines. It calculates these as a potential £300 million loss to its members.

According to the Guardian, in a document entitled “HHIC Clean Heat Market Mechanism Consultation Response”, the EUA wrote: (It) did not believe that the proposed clean heat market mechanism will achieve its stated aims with the policy as currently designed.

“The central proposal that boiler manufacturers are able to dictate the products homeowners install in their homes is flawed.”

According to DeSmog, WPR’s two-year campaign advanced hydrogen as a cheaper alternative to electric heat, as it uses existing pipework.  Members of the EUA include leading gas boiler makers as well as Cadent, Britain’s biggest gas network operator. Its members account for 98% of home heat installations, overwhelmingly for gas.

EUA chief executive Mike Foster told the Guardian that 2026 was a “sensible timeframe” because the government’s current proposals would hit gas boiler companies with fines, without it putting in place the mechanisms necessary.

Foster said only 30,000 heat pump installations would qualify for government grants to householders.  If boiler companies failed to instal about 60,000 in private homes, they would be fined.

Good Energy has installed heat pumps since 2021 and is a member of the Electrify Heat initiative.

Kit Dixon, its head of policy and regulation, said: “While the UK has cut carbon from its electricity system we have barely made a dent in our gas reliant heating.

“We are already embarrassingly far behind our neighbours across Europe. It beggars belief that the gas lobby is attempting to delay our transition to cleaner heat.

“We cannot sacrifice our climate goals to vested interests and the myth of consumer choice. Heat pumps customers are proven to be highly satisfied with a technology which is superior to the humble gas boiler and beyond ready to be scaled,” the Good Energy spokesperson added.