Little progress made on energy efficiency in UK homes, report finds
Ministers have made negligible progress in improving the energy efficiency of the UK’s homes even as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underscored the need to cut the reliance on gas for home heating, according to the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC).
The independent infrastructure tsars’ annual report warned that the progress towards improving the UK’s infrastructure “stuttered further” last year, despite the need for increased investment to meet its economic and climate goals.
The report took aim at the government’s record on insulating the UK’s draughty housing stock and the sluggish take-up of electric heat pumps to help cut emissions from home heating, even as the UK’s reliance on gas cost the economy billions due to Europe’s energy crisis.
Sir John Armitt, the chair of the NIC, said there was “a significant gap between long-term ambition and current performance”, which required “a change of gear in infrastructure policy”.
“This means fewer low-stakes incremental changes and instead placing some bigger strategic bets, backed by public funding where necessary – after all, the risk of delay in addressing climate change is now greater than the risk of over-correction,” Armitt said.
Despite a government ambition for at least 600,000 heat pumps to be installed each year by 2028, only 55,000 were fitted in 2021, while 1.5m gas boilers were fitted. The NIC blamed insufficient government funding and the absence of key policies for the lack of progress and urged the government to develop a concrete plan.
The UK remains too reliant on natural gas, which is “a high-cost, high-carbon and insecure source of energy”, the NIC said.
“In 2022, the sharp rise in gas prices prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine increased the cost
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