The research and innovation foundation Nesta has welcomed the UK government’s announcement that it will devolve elements of the Warm Homes Plan, while warning that going further and devolving a key heat pump grant scheme would be a mistake, in a new blog by Andrew Sissons, director in Nesta’s sustainable future mission.
At Labour Party Conference, Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh announced on Monday 28th September that she would devolve the Warm Homes Plan, the UK government’s £15 billion funding pot for upgrading homes.
In the new blog, Sissons responds outlining how having mayors and strategic authorities in charge of upgrading home energy and heating “makes a lot of sense”.
But he warns that in its drive to devolve, the government should avoid devolving the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), a successful national programme that provides grants for people replacing fossil fuel heating, such as gas boilers, with low-carbon equivalents, such as heat pumps.
Sissons says that devolving heat pump subsidies to local authorities could “would effectively mean ending” the UK’s most successful low-carbon heating scheme. He cites challenges around allocating funding, creating uncertainty within the heat pump industry and making it more difficult for consumers, while making a case for how the BUS could be made to work better for local authorities.
To readAndrew Sissons’ full blog visit: https://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/devolving-the-warm-homes-plan/
