Now offering £7,500 to homes that strip out old gas-fired heating, the government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme has appeared to under-perform in the two years since it opened to voucher applications.  Funding of £450 million for the BUS is approved by D-ESNZ until next year.

But figures released today by the ministry show a 93% near-doubling year on year last month of applications for the scheme.

By the end of April, a total of 40,259 applications for BUS re-imbursement had reached the ministry during the two years of the scheme. All but 4% were for air-sourced heat pumps.

Raising the BUS grant in October by half to £7,500 seems to have sped up allocations.  Applications for cash to redeem vouchers underpinning installations rose last month by 57%, compared with April 2023.  Vouchers issued towards costs rose too over the same period, up 69% to just under 1,800 last month.

All told, just over 25,000 home boilers have been replaced under the BUS, today’s figures show. That appears still to lag ministers’ expectations. When announced in 2021, the BUS set a target of 600,000 replacements by 2028.

Average costs in the market of a system redeemed during the BUS’s two years has been £13,150 for an airsource pump and £25,00 for a ground source pump, the figures show.  Both values include the grant value.

Data released by Ofgem also shows that there have been more than 40,000 applications in total, with the scheme having paid out over 25,000 grants, with more than £148 million issued.

Rural homes account for 57% of all pump installations paid for under the BUS. 54% were on the gas grid.

From Swedish pump manufacturer & installer Aira, UK chief executive Daniel Särefjord acknowledged how the government’s raising the BUS grant to £7,500 had put wheels under the market.

“This helping hand has raised awareness of the benefits of innovative heat pumps”, said Särefjord, “such as lower heating costs, greater energy security for the UK and a 75% reduction in heating-related carbon emissions and air pollution in comparison to a domestic gas or oil boiler.

“After the election”, the Aira boss continued, “I hope the new government will work closely with the British heat pump sector to meet our climate commitments, decarbonise homes and secure a fair deal for UK residents.

“In the next parliament, our much-needed energy transition will depend on MPs scrapping planning policy red tape, rebalancing the taxes and levies on electricity and gas, as well as continuing and progressing the nation’s subsidy offering.”

Ministers point to pricing moves from some energy retailers to make heat pumps more attractive still.  Octopus Energy and British Gas both offers complete heat pump installations from £500.

Some offer tariffs designed specifically to work with heat pumps. Octopus’s Cozy electricity tariff can save heat pump users an estimated £96 compared with a standard flexible tariff.  Ovo’s Heat Pump Plus tariff allows customers access to run a pump on a specialist tariff fixed at 15p/kWh.

“These latest numbers show that for more and more families, the switch to a heat pump is starting to make financial sense”, said energy secretary Claire Coutinho.

“Our plan is to give families a helping hand, rather than forcing them to make expensive changes before they are ready”.

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EVs and e-mobility are now the largest sector for spending in the energy transition, growing 36% last year to $634 billion, according to the firm’s influential Energy Transition Investment Trends 2024.  The figure includes spending on vehicles and battery making, as well as associated infrastructure.

In second place, renewable energy generation saw an 8% increase last year in new investment to $623 billion.

At $310 billion, grid and transmission investments made up the third largest sector. Grids are a critical enabler for the energy transition.

China remained the world’s biggest single green power investor, its $676 billion outlay making up 38% of the global total. But that 11% drop on 2022 reflected its faltering economy. The total was surpassed jointly by the US, Europe and the UK.

“Last year brought new records for global renewable energy investment. Strong growth in the US and Europe drove the global rise, even as China sputtered”, commented Meredith Annex, co-author of BNEF’s report.

Despite a year of supply chain constraints, record totals of offshore wind capacity also reached financial close.

Global energy transition investment by sector    Source:  Bloomberg NEF

Overall global renewables spend of $135 billion in 2023 could reach $259 billion next year, according to Bloomberg.

World invests only a third of what it needs to

But the consultancy cautions that global green investments continue to lag far behind UN-sponsored goals to achieve Net Zero by mid-century.

Bloomberg says energy transition spending needs to average $4.8 trillion every year from 2024 to 2030 to align with BNEF’s Net Zero Scenario, a UN Paris Agreement-aligned trajectory from its New Energy Outlook published in 2022. This is nearly three times the total investment observed in 2023.

“Our report shows just how quickly the clean energy opportunity is growing, and yet how far off track we still are,” said Albert Cheung, BNEF’s deputy CEO.

“Energy transition investment spending grew 17% last year, but it needs to grow more than 170% if we are to get on track for net zero in the coming years,“ Cheung added. “Only determined action from policymakers can unlock this kind of step-change in momentum.”

Top 10 economies for 2023 energy transition investment, plus the EU-27 and rest of the world

More details here.

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The transnational nukes-to-offshore-wind combine positions itself as Britain’s biggest generator of zero carbon electricity.

Two years ago it took a minority stake in the 23-year old Clacton, Essex based ASHP-maker. Their partnership boosted CB Heating’s skilled workforce fivefold in its first year, training an extra 370 engineers.  Full ownership is expected to yield still more. The purchase price was not disclosed.

As deployment of air- and ground-sourced extractors of low carbon energy lags woefully behind the government’s target of 600,000 per year by 2028, EdF’s move coincides with D-ESNZ’s recent 50% boost to the household pump subsidy.

It now offers householders £7,500 per home ASHP installation.  Extending the Boiler Upgrade Scheme by three years until 2008 is Whitehall’s supporting incentive.

With the Future Homes Standard set to ban installation of gas boilers in new homes after 2024, and a total ban on gas boilers by 2035, both acquiror and acquiree intend today’s consolidation to slash waiting times. EDF wants these to drop by half from their current three to four months.

The deal will also see EdF putting a dedicated team in place to deliver heat pumps to homes.

A major challenge confronting the government’s overarching decarbonisation strategy is a dearth of qualified heat engineers.

According to economic consultancy Nesta, Britain needs 27,000 qualified technicians to meet that target of delivering 600,000 heat pump installations every year by 2028.   At present only 4,500 qualified installers earn a living from heat pumps in the UK,^,compared to more than 150,000 gas safe engineers.

Since August 2022, EdF’s partnership with CB Heating has aided development of the Heat Pump Installers Network (HPIN) Academy, delivering free training nationwide to upskill engineers at every level.

In consequence, heat pump installers under training have risen from 90 experts to 463 now. The Academy has capacity to train 4,000 new heat pump installers every year.

Clayton Browne, managing director of CB Heating, said: “Now we have has the resource to continue to grow our HPIN venture, already the largest network of qualified trained heat pump installers in the UK.

“We plan to train over 1,000 heat pump installers in 2024, meaning a quarter of all estimated heat pump installers in the UK will be a HPIN member.

Philippe Commaret, EdF’s managing director of customers said: “The investment we’re making in the heat pump market is representative of all the work we’re doing to help Britain achieve net zero.

EdF’s rival, Octopus, now Britain’s second-biggest energy supplier by account volume, bought Craigavon -based pump manufacturer RED in April 2022.

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Already two years into test production in a plant near Berlin, the firm’s co-founder Dr Chris Chase tells the Financial  Times today that the UK’s lack of incentives leads the manufacturer to rank the USA or Europe’s mainland as better homes for a base to step up production of its ultra-efficient solar panels.

The 13 year old university spin-off announced this week a record conversion efficiency for its cells, which use a microfilm of the synthesised perovskite mineral.  Against standard coated silicon which convert up to 24% of light into electricity, perovskite achieved 28.6% in lab tests two years ago.

The firm’s new tandem silicon-perovskite sandwich structure pushes that to 33.2%.  Its first commercial sales are set for early 2024.

Twenty per cent of upfront costs of Euro 44 million to build the firm’s existing German plant two years ago were met by Berlin’s regional government. Britain in contrast offered ‘zero incentives’ for such investment, Oxford Perovskite’s co-founder Dr Chris Chase told the FT.

“It seems to me the rest of the world is staking their future on solar and the UK is not”.  Chase told the newspaper. Germany and the US were strong candidates for its next plant, he added.

OP is owned by Swiss solar developer Meyer Burger and Chinese power technologists Goldwind.  Listing its shares is the next step, in what Chase told the FT would be a multi-million fund-raising round. NASDAQ in the US or Hong Kong were being considered, he said.

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