Boiler Upgrade Scheme: £5000 grant to be made available to replace gas boilers.
Details of the long-awaited Heat and Buildings Strategy have finally emerged with a new government scheme offering homeowners £5000 to install low carbon heating systems, such as air source heat pumps, which run on electricity.
As part of government plans to reduce carbon emissions, £450m will be made available to help reach the target for all new heating systems to be low carbon by 2035.
The £5000 grants will be made available from April 2022 as part of the Heat and Buildings strategy.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “As we clean up the way we heat our homes over the next decade, we are backing our brilliant innovators to make clean technology like heat pumps as cheap to buy and run as gas boilers – supporting thousands of green jobs.
“Our new grants will help homeowners make the switch sooner, without costing them extra, so that going green is the better choice when their boiler needs an upgrade.”
Labour’s shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband, said: “As millions of families face an energy and cost of living crisis, this is a meagre, unambitious and wholly inadequate response.
“Families up and down the country desperately needed Labour’s 10-year plan investing £6bn-a-year for home insulation and zero carbon heating to cut bills by £400 per-year, improve our energy security, create jobs and reduce carbon emissions.
“People can’t warm their homes with yet more of Boris Johnson’s hot air but that is all that is on offer.”
Boiler Guide founder, David Holmes said: “The £5000 grant will not get close to covering the full cost for the installation of a heat pump and does not address the lack of suitability for millions of poorly insulated UK homes. More investment is needed in improving insulation in the UK housing stock and more focus needs to be given to developing hydrogen as an alternative to gas.
