Climate body CCC says cut electricity bills to boost heat pumps

Net-zero means the moment when the UK is no longer adding to the overall total of planet warming gases in the atmosphere.

Only one third of the actions that the UK needs to take to hit the 2030 goal are backed up by credible plans, the CCC says in its annual report.

The key actions that need to be taken include ramping up renewable energy, a faster switch to electric vehicles, and installing significantly more heat pumps in our homes to replace gas boilers.

There needs to be a big increases in tree planting and peatland restoration as well.

According to the CCC, rollbacks announced by Mr Sunak last Autumn were damaging to overall UK efforts.

In particular, Mr Sunak set out exemptions to the phase out of new fossil fuel boilers, due to come in from 2035.

These are expected to exempt about a fifth of homes.

But the CCC says this “could seriously undermine the UK’s ability to reach its targets.”

The CCC says that to get back on track for 2030, the proportion of homes using heat pumps for their heating needs to rise from 1% today to 10%.

To boost their uptake, the CCC wants the new government to lower electricity prices, which they say are artificially high because they include things like levies to pay for home insulation.

Even though heat pumps, powered by electricity, are more efficient and use less energy than gas boilers, that is not currently reflected in bills.

“We do think that this making electricity cheaper is the key thing,” said Dr James Richardson, acting chief executive of the CCC. He said countries like France and the Netherlands were seeing a real acceleration in uptake of heat pumps compared to the UK.

“That seems to be from this mix of upfront support, which we already have, and getting the relative prices of gas and electricity in a better balance, which we don’t have.”

The CCC says that these levies should be split more evenly with gas bills to give a greater incentive for electricity use.