Mitsubishi Electric: Budget needed focus on heat pumps

This article features expert comment from Russell Dean, Residential Product Group Director at Mitsubishi Electric, on yesterday’s Spring Budget…

He argues the Budget should have given support to households moving away from gas boilers towards more renewable alternatives, such as heat pumps, with the key to this being the need to make heat pumps more affordable, starting with rebalancing the cost of electricity with gas.

“We would have liked the Spring Budget to focus on supporting households to move away from gas boilers and towards more renewable alternatives. This will be vital to decarbonising the UK and reaching the government’s own target of 600,000 heat pump installations annually by 2028.

“To achieve this target, Mitsubishi Electric is calling for the government to rebalance the cost of electricity and gas. The cost of electricity in the UK is higher than the cost of fossil fuels. From April gas prices will be capped at 6p/kWh while electricity will be capped at 24p/kWh – which puts unfair costs onto households wishing to adopt and install heat pumps.

“Rebalancing this cost would make electricity more affordable – particularly relevant at a time when the cost-of-living is causing huge strain across the UK. It would also move household energy requirements away from fossil fuels and volatile oil & gas prices, back UK energy security as the nation moves to renewable energy sources, and help to grow the green economy and employment in Britain.

“In the long term, we would like to see levies removed from electricity bills to balance these costs. In the short term, we support the Heat Pump Associations’ call for a Domestic Heat Pump Tariff Discount, which would reduce the price of electricity used for hot water and heating produced by a domestic heat pump.”

Mitsubishi Electric Living Systems,
Travellers Lane,
Hatfield,
Hertfordshire,
AL10 8XB
United Kingdom

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