The breadth of the Warm Homes Plan reflects the major challenges it is trying to solve: reducing energy bills, reducing fuel poverty, and reducing emissions from homes.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has responded to these challenges by setting new delivery targets:
- grow heat pump supply chains to deliver 450,000 installations in 2030
- install solar panels on three million homes over the next four years
- upgrade five million homes by 2030
This analysis digs into the detail behind those targets and considers how and whether they will be fulfilled. Ultimately, we find that DESNZ makes a good case that the Warm Homes Plan can deliver its ambitions; but sticking the landing will not be easy.
Even with its generous £15 billion funding settlement, the Warm Homes Plan has created many mouths to feed. Heat pumps and solar panels in particular are going to account for the majority of the plan’s budget, and may end up competing for the limited resources of schemes such as the Warm Homes Investment Fund. There are also risks that are hard for DESNZ to control, such as energy prices, or the capacity of local authorities. DESNZ is not blind to these, and the plan outlines what they will do to mitigate those. But nonetheless, the targets set out in the plan leave little room for error.
