Heat decarbonisation strategy set for further delay

The government’s heat and buildings strategy looks set for a fresh delay until after May’s elections, an official has admitted, while warning that rushed introduction could set back efforts to decarbonise the nation’s building stock.

Danny Newport, deputy director of the heat and buildings strategy team at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), told the Association of Decentralised Energy’s winter reception yesterday (17 March) that the strategy was due to be published in March, the target date set out in December’s energy white paper.

However, he said publication is now “likely to slip” until after May’s elections, when the Scottish and Welsh devolved administrations as well as councils across the UK go to the polls. Utility Week understands that the publication of the document has been caught up in the so called ‘purdah’ rules, which limit the announcements the government cam make in the run-up to elections.

Newport said the latest delay to the heat and building strategy, which had been due to be published last summer before the pandemic, would not make a “huge difference” to the final document.

While acknowledging that “frustration” exists about delays to the rollout of heat decarbonisation policy, he warned that the government must be cautious about how it proceeds with policy in the area.

“We must not stop. However, we need to proceed with a degree of caution because one thing that will set this agenda back another decade is if we roll things out and it stops working: that is a nightmare and we must not take our eyes off that.

“We must not end up taking a ten-year backstep because things have fallen over in the process.”

He said “potential tensions” exist between taking an approach where “you let the market run and you deal with the infrastructural consequences, or plan something where we know the infrastructure works and isn’t going to fall over”.

In a nod to concerns that the switch over from gas to electricity could render the former network redundant, Newton said: “The choice between these two ways of seeing the world comes to a head with the risk of stranded assets. We have huge national assets for delivering energy to people’s homes and we will need to make choices about those assets.

“We are going to have choices on the journey to 2050 as to the role of those assets, whether we need new assets and whether we adapt those assets.”

However, he said that all progress on the ground must not be held up pending decisions on these strategic issues.

Chris Stark, chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), agreed that progress could be made on so called ‘no regrets’ heat decarbonisation options in the absence of an over-arching strategy.

“We can’t put off the challenge of decarbonising buildings any longer.

“Most off-grid properties can be served by heat pumps so don’t need to wait for strategic decisions on the gas network,” he said, adding that there can also be progress on the fifth of the UK’s building stock which will be suitable for district heating systems.

But few ministers or councils understand the depth of the challenge surrounding the decarbonisation of the building stock, Stark said.

Clementine Cowton, director of external affairs at Octopus Energy, said the UK can be “intensely relaxed” about the risk of stranded assets.