The UK Coalition Government should focus on making homes more energy efficient before agreeing to subsidise renewable heat technologies the think tank IPPR has warned.
The think tank published its report, Warmth in a changing climate: How should the government encourage households to use renewable heat?, last Friday. During their research they found that overall greater carbon savings throughout the housing stock could be made by encouraging the up-take of the Government’s Green Deal, which offers increased insulating measures for home owners, than the up-take of renewable heat technologies within a domestic dwelling. They suggest that the emphasis should be on the reduction of heat demand rather than the subsidy of heat generation.
“Households have least to gain out the current plan as most people would not have the financial means to deploy the renewable heat technology in the first place,” warns the IPPR.
The Government’s current approach will neither serve to help families deal with rising energy costs nor significantly cut the 23% of all UK carbon emissions that originate from homes.
“De-carbonising household heat is essential if the UK is to meet its climate change targets. But the Government’s current approach is the wrong one,” says Andrew Pendleton from IPPR.
Instead, the report recommends restricting RHI incentives to households that already achieve a threshold level of thermal efficiency, integrating the incentives into the Green Deal to ensure a holistic approach and assisting householders with upfront costs.
With winter fast approaching and further hikes in the prices of energy likely to push more people into fuel poverty, the Government needs to understand the urgency of the need to treat the UK's aging and inefficient housing stock quickly.
For further information: www.ippr.org/,