Centralised approach to heat decarbonisation will deter innovation

Taking a one-size-fits-all approach to decarbonising heat across the country could be a “disaster”, the director of a local government climate change umbrella body has warned.

Polly Billington, director the UK100 group of council leaders, backed the idea of setting up a national delivery body to spearhead heat decarbonisation efforts, as recommended by the CBI in a report last year.

“Without a delivery body separate from government, focusing on operationalising policy, it won’t happen,” she said, giving evidence yesterday (8 June) to the Commons business, energy & industrial strategy (BEIS) committee’s ongoing inquiry into decarbonising heat in homes.

But Billington told the committee any such national body would have to work “closely” with local authorities in order to best harness the varied opportunities for sustainable heat offered by different areas.

As examples she pointed to how Stoke council has used spare heat from industry, while other areas have been able to tap their disused mines.

“The idea of doing it all one way is a classic Whitehall rollout disaster waiting to happening unless there is acknowledgement that we need to design these things locally through area energy planning.

“I’m not advocating everything being bespoke. There is a lot a national delivery body should be able to share and roll out.

“I am concerned that if it is Whitehall-dominated, you will iron out all the possibilities of locally generated heat and resource and miss out on innovation.”

Billington also warned councils will continue to make decisions that increase emissions, like giving planning permissions for homes that will require retrofitting to make them energy efficient, if they do not receive a stronger steer from central government.

And she expressed concern that the government’s main contact point with councils, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is not sufficiently engaged with efforts to curb emissions.

“The key department, which would normally liaise with local government, doesn’t have net zero and decarbonisation at its heart.

“It doesn’t have quite the focus on decarbonisation that it needs.”

Billington also called for distribution networks and local government to be provided with incentives to work more closely together.

Stephen Knight, managing director of the Heat Trust, had earlier in the session told MPs that it is “difficult to imagine” local authorities not having a key leadership role in delivering domestic decarbonisation efforts.

He also said that for consumers, moving to a heat network marked a “very big shift” from participating in a competitive gas and electricity market to one where they are tied to a supplier “in perpetuity”.