Responding to the announcement of the Heat and Buildings Strategy from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Madeleine Gabriel, Director of Nesta’s Sustainable Future mission, said:

“As millions of households struggle to heat their homes this winter, warm words alone will not give us warm, green homes. The new strategy marks a welcome commitment to replacing outdated boilers with low carbon heating systems but getting the implementation right will be absolutely crucial. The new strategy was loudly announced last night, but it’s concerning that the strategy itself has still not been published 12 hours later. The strategy stands to affect millions of people and businesses, most of whom will learn about it from media reports. They and the journalists covering the story deserve to see the details of the policy when it is announced, otherwise it’s impossible to provide meaningful scrutiny.

“While the costs of switching to low carbon heating are high at present, they will come down over time, just as they have done for renewable energy and electric vehicles. But they’ll need to come down very quickly to meet the Government’s own target of 600,000 heat pump installations a year by 2028 - more than 20 times the number installed in 2019. The new Boiler Upgrade Scheme will need much more funding over time, with more done to support people on lower incomes to make the switch, so that everyone can enjoy affordable, comfortable and clean heating once boilers are phased out in 2035.

“The proposals to reduce levies on electricity, the cleanest energy source available in our homes, are a welcome step to support this. Making electricity more affordable relative to gas will be crucial in making green heating more attractive. We need to end our reliance on gas, which leaves us at the mercy of global gas markets as well as overheating the planet.

“We need to see rapid innovation to make heat pumps and other green heating options both cheaper and easier to install, so it’s good to see £60m set aside for heat pump innovation as well as £65m for innovative projects to help manage electricity demand. We hope this will lead to further investment in these areas as well as innovation in energy efficiency, which appears to have been largely overlooked in the strategy.”