I'm delighted with my heat pump – but there are still too many barriers to getting one installed
(Credit: Carla Denyer MP)
4 min read
The government is right to put heat pumps at the centre of its Warm Homes Plan. But affordability and convenience are key – as I learnt first-hand.
Nearly one in three adults is struggling to keep their home warm enough this winter, including over three million older people. Investment in insulation for low-income households is crucial to keeping homes warm, and bills and emissions low.
And so is investing in better ways to heat homes in the first place, like heat pumps.
Heat pumps are powered by electricity and are super-efficient at moving heat from one place to another, keeping homes warm by extracting warmth from the air outside and bringing it in.
After getting a heat pump installed last year, this winter I’m living in a warmer home, with lower bills, and lower carbon emissions. I’m delighted with it.
But my experience taught me a lot about what’s been stopping many people from getting a heat pump installed – and the hurdles that government needs to think about as it implements the Warm Homes Plan.
Of course, there was the cost. For most of the last ten years, before I was elected as an MP, I earned about the average UK salary – and I simply couldn’t afford to get a heat pump put in, with all the accompanying insulation, plumbing, carpentry, electrics and paperwork. I can only afford it now, as since becoming an MP, I am lucky to earn a very good salary.
So, more grants and loans to help households fit a heat pump are a great step in the right direction. But, considering funding that has previously been cut, the new budget is only enough for a fraction of the homes that need it, and a huge cut from Labour's policy in opposition. I’m also disappointed that it doesn’t include measures to stop landlords simply passing on the cost of meeting new energy efficiency standards to their tenants – a risk that could be addressed by, for example, rent controls.
Then there’s process. My flat has a few features which make it more complicated than usual to put in a heat pump (though far from uniquely so), and project-managing it all was a challenge alongside my workload as an MP. Now imagine being a single parent, just about making ends meet, and trying to take it all on.
I pushed through the hassle because I was really motivated to lower my personal carbon emissions, and I am really glad I did it.
But most people have lots of other priorities to juggle – putting food on the table for their kids, paying the bills, keeping a roof over their heads.
As the Warm Homes Plan is implemented, it must address not just the cost, but the process.
Huge damage was done by the previous Conservative government’s botched home insulation scheme, under which alleged fraud and cowboy construction ran rampant.
A big part of the solution will be in building the skilled workforce. The team that fitted my heat pump, insulation and induction hob were brilliant – and in high demand. Decades of government underinvestment in creating the workforce and supply chains to retrofit the UK’s homes were evident, and it took me a long time to find local tradespeople willing to do the job.
We are going to need many, many more skilled installers nationwide to do this work. Which is why the government creating uncertainty in the labour market by cancelling funding for the ECO4 home energy efficiency scheme months before confirming what would replace it in the Warm Homes Plan was… suboptimal.
We need to see an end to the stop-start funding and uncertainty that has plagued the industry for years.
The Warm Homes Plan is a solid step in the right direction. But government must address the barriers that risk preventing people from having a cosy, efficient, low-carbon home like mine.
Carla Denyer is the Green Party MP for Bristol Central, and is her party's spokesperson for energy security and net zero
