Heat pumps should be key to Truss’s energy strategy, urges expert

theguardian.com:

Heat pumps need to be at the heart of any new energy strategy, to keep Britain’s homes warm and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but so far there is little sign of the policy measures needed, one of the UK’s leading heating experts has warned.

Liz Truss, who was officially installed as prime minister on Tuesday, has pledged help for households with the cost of living crisis with details to be announced in full this week. Measures are likely to include a cap on energy prices and increased gas production.

But the strategy will miss out on a vital opportunity to permanently reduce households bills unless it includes significant incentives for people to install heat pumps, according to Jan Rosenow, of the Regulatory Assistance Project.

Switching to a heat pump would knock more than £260 off the average household’s annual bills on current levels, Rosenow has estimated. These savings would rise to £576 a year if the energy price cap increase in October goes ahead. This now looks unlikely as Truss has promised more help with energy bills.

“This is about reducing energy costs to consumers,” said Rosenow. “But [Truss] seems to be awfully quiet about the possibility of reducing energy demand, by things like insulation or heat pumps. All her attention seems to be on the supply side. Demand strategy should come first.”

Focusing on supply, from measures such as increasing North Sea production or fracking, might grab headlines, and capping bills would prove a highly visible short-term measure, but the government risked missing out on longer-term opportunities to permanently reduce the UK’s demand for fossil fuel energy, he said.

“It’s not so visible, to help people reduce their energy demand, but it will cut the costs and the reliance on