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Can we reach net zero housing?

The recent COP29 climate change conference in Baku ended as an unmitigated disaster in the eyes of many due to the relatively meagre level of support agreed for developing nations, but at least back home in the UK we have seen some positive messages emerge for the domestic population.

The highly influential Climate Change Committee has produced an assessment saying that only one third of the emissions reductions required to achieve the country’s 2030 target are currently covered by credible plans.

Perhaps this rather bleak view can be counter-balanced by news that the country’s carbon emissions are now less than half the levels they were in 1990, which is largely due to the phase out of coal and the ramping up of cleaner and greener renewables.

This changing of our energy sources has been a huge success, but to continue with the decarbonisation of the UK we need to see positive action taking place across other sectors of the economy, including transport, buildings, industry and agriculture. It has become clear that the plans from the previous Government will not deliver enough action.

The rate of investment will therefore need to ramp up by considerable amounts

Patrick Mooney Patrick Mooney News editor, Housing Management & Maintenance

Course correction in progress

Professor Piers Forster, who is interim Chair of the Climate Change Committee, has said: “The country’s 2030 emissions reduction target is at risk. The new Government has an opportunity to course-correct, but it will need to be done as a matter of urgency to make up for lost time. They are off to a good start. Action needs to extend beyond electricity, with rapid progress needed on electric cars, heat pumps and tree planting.

“The transition to Net Zero can deliver investment, lower bills, and energy security. It will help the UK keep its place on the world stage. It is a way for this Government to serve both the people of today and the people of tomorrow.”

Last week the Government announced that some 300,000 households will benefit from home upgrades next year under its Warm Homes Plan which was given an initial £3.4bn in the Budget, including £1.8bn for fuel poverty schemes.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has said it will also consult on plans to increase energy efficiency standards for new boilers and heat pumps.

Considering there are almost 30 million homes in the UK, you can see this latest scheme will only benefit about 1% of the nation’s housing stock. The rate of investment will therefore need to ramp up by considerable amounts if we are to deliver a world leading role on tackling climate change.

Planning conditions eased

The DESNZ said that as part of the Warm Homes Plan homeowners will be able to receive a £7,500 heat pump grant through a £30m extension to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme.

It has also announced that households will be able to install an air source heat pump without needing to submit a planning application in England.

This will be a huge relief to a friend of mine, who is a local councillor. He told me that his authority’s planning committee was getting bogged down in the number of applications for heat pumps being submitted by householders, either due to their projected noise levels or because of their proximity to the property boundary.

The current rules block homeowners installing a heat pump less than a metre from their property’s boundary. The changes, which are being made by the Housing Ministry early next year, will amend the existing permitted development right to:

  • Remove the 1m boundary rule, enabling heat pumps to be installed within 1m of the property boundary.
  • Increase the size limit of the heat pump for dwellinghouses from 0.6m3 to 1.5m3.
  • Double the number of heat pumps permitted, from one to two for detached dwelling houses.
  • Support the rollout of air-to-air heat pumps that can also provide a cooling function.

The permitted development right will continue to require that installations are compliant with the relevant Microgeneration Certification Scheme Planning Standards.

One person who appeared very satisfied with the changes announced, was Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, who said: “More than a third of customers who order a heat pump drop out because of planning issues, leaving them stuck with dirty, inefficient gas boilers. Removing outdated and unnecessary red tape is an urgent priority to grow this sector and get low cost, safe, clean heating technology into British homes.”

Energy independence

Working alongside the Government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower, the Warm Homes Plan will ensure millions more households benefit from homegrown energy delivered by every new turbine, solar panel or pylon built on the path to energy independence.

Meanwhile the deadline for social landlords to apply for the Government’s current £1.2bn Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund, formerly known as the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, has just closed with successful applications due to be announced in early 2025 and organisations having until 30 September 2028 to complete works.

Matthew Scott, policy and practice officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing said the Warm Homes Plan ”will significantly support the sector’s plans to tackle fuel poverty, while simultaneously cutting carbon emissions from our homes and boosting local supply chains.”

Professor Forster from the Climate Change Committee has said that by 2030, we need to have increased solar panel installations by a factor of five and increased the number of existing homes heated by a heat pump by 10 times – both of which appear to be a very tall order. Not least of the challenges are having the raw materials and the specialist labour to make, fit and install panels and pumps.

Households will be able to install heat pumps without a planning application

Patrick Mooney Patrick Mooney News editor, Housing Management & Maintenance

A lengthy ‘to do’ list

Back in the Summer, Professor Forster wrote a priority list of ten recommendations for the Government. He said by 2030 we must:

  • Make electricity cheaper. Removing policy costs from electricity prices will support industrial electrification and ensure the lower running costs of heat pumps compared to fossil-fuel boilers are reflected in household bills.
  • Reverse recent policy rollbacks. Remove the exemption of 20% of households from the 2035 fossil-fuel boiler installation phase-out, address the gap left by removing obligations on landlords to improve the energy efficiency of rented homes and reinstate the 2030 phase-out of new fossil-fuel car and van sales. The damage of these rollbacks can be limited by quickly reinstating these policies.
  • Remove planning barriers for heat pumps, electric vehicle charge points and onshore wind.
  • Introduce a comprehensive programme for decarbonisation of public sector buildings.
  • Effectively design and implement the upcoming renewable energy CfD auctions. Ensure funding and auction design for the Sixth and Seventh Allocation Rounds are appropriate to deliver at least 50 GW of offshore wind by 2030.
  • Accelerate electrification of industrial heat. Strengthen the UK Emissions Trading Scheme to ensure that its price is sufficient to incentivise decarbonisation and that support is available for a rapid transition to electric heat across much of industry.
  • Ramp up tree planting and peatland restoration. Tree planting must be scaled up in the 2020s for abatement to be sufficient for later carbon budgets and Net Zero. There must be no more delays to addressing the barriers to delivery.
  • Finalise business models for large-scale deployment of engineered removals. Finalise and open to the market the business models for engineered removals.
  • Publish a strategy to support skills. Support workers in sectors which need to grow or transition and in communities that may be adversely impacted.
  • Strengthen NAP3 with a vision that sets clear objectives and targets and reorganise government adaptation policy. Adaptation must become a fundamental aspect of policymaking across all departments and be integrated into other national policy objectives.

7th Carbon Budget

Good progress has been made on delivering a number of these, but we will get a better idea of how much progress has been made when the Climate Change Committee publishes its advice on the Seventh Carbon Budget and an updated path to Net Zero early in 2025.

The next COP conference is due to be held in Brazil, in the Amazonian city of Belém. For so long the deforestation of the South American rain forest has been a symbol of man’s actions in causing climate change.

Whether the proximity to this will drive the politicians to be more ambitious in 2025 remains to be seen, but we could certainly do with more credible actions being committed to and delivered on.

It might even be possible for the UK Government to play a greater leadership role by pointing to its domestic work towards delivering net zero.

Patrick Mooney is News editor, Housing Management & Maintenance