Heat pump scheme budget ‘not likely’ to be spent

Concerns about low take-up of the government’s home heating upgrade initiative have been underlined by figures showing that three quarters of the scheme’s first-year budget had yet to be spent after six months.

The government has earmarked £150 million per annum for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) over three years, kicking off last May.

Polly Billington, director the UK100 umbrella group of council leaders, told the House of Lords environment and climate change committee that only £34 million worth of BUS vouchers have been issued in the first six months of the scheme’s operation.

Giving evidence to the committee’s inquiry into the BUS, she said: “In order to fulfil the potential of this scheme, the government is going to have to spend another £116 million before April and £16.6 million every month between November and April, which doesn’t look like it is going to happen.”

According to figures published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 24 November, 8,904 applications for BUS vouchers had been received up to the end of October in England and Wales.

A total of 7,175 vouchers have been issued of which 4,669 have been redeemed and 4,097 approved and paid.

Billington said the scheme’s relatively simplicity didn’t seem to be reflected in this “quite low take up”.

Locally delivered schemes are “much more likely to get the impact you want”, she said, pointing to the success of the local authority delivered element of the Green Homes Grant retrofit scheme.

Dr Richard Lowes, senior associate at The Regulatory Assistance Project, told the committee that “the big thing missing” in the scheme is communication.

“One of biggest barriers is that people don’t know it exists. A lot of early legwork needs to be done around communication.”

The BEIS statistics shows that the average cost of installing heat pumps through the scheme is around £12,900.

Of the low-carbon heating systems replaced through the scheme, 96% have been air source heat pumps, with the biggest uptake in the south west and south east regions.

Exactly half of the heating systems replaced under the BUS so far have been gas boilers.