A new report launched by Minister for Climate Change Lord Duncan on 15 October 2019, calls for an urgent Green Heat Roadmap by 2020 to scale low carbon heating technologies.

The 80% 2050 carbon emission reduction target relative to 1990 already required over 20,000 households to switch to low-carbon heating every week between 2025 and 2050. The zero-carbon target requires even more rapid decarbonisation yet the most successful policy constellations to date have only succeeded in encouraging 2,000 dwellings to switch to low-carbon heating every week.

Despite the focus on households, large-scale rollout also requires the development of supply chains so at-scale demonstrations go hand-in-hand with protection. This activity will also impact on the role the commercial sector will have to play, particularly with community-led and local approaches taking precedent, increasing the visibility of successful approaches.

Commenting on the report, Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA) chief executive Mike Foster said;

“EUA believes that the only sensible, cost effective and deliverable solution to decarbonising the hard to tackle heat sector is by using green gases such as hydrogen. The technology is being tested that can deliver the carbon reductions needed, while keeping people warm.”

Foster continued:

“It is the optimum solution. The energy trilemma, a phrase that rightly suggests the difficulty in balancing the competing demands of affordability, reliability, and sustainability, should be set against the UK’s particular needs, and utilising the existing gas network, but with low carbon gas, does this.”

Read the report – Uncomfortable Home Truths: Why Britain Urgently Needs a Low Carbon Heat Strategy. Future Gas Series: Part 3 (1MB PDF)