Labour’s Warm Homes Plan – hybrid heat pumps needed to fill the rural policy gap

At last month’s comprehensive spending review – where the Labour government outlined its spending commitments for the next three years – the Chancellor committed over £10bn to its Warm Homes Plan, which will seek to help homes and businesses decarbonize. The plan itself is due to be published in the autumn.

As a leading rural energy provider, we remain concerned that a policy gap exists in these emerging plans for the nation’s rural, off-gas grid homes, due to the limited support available for clean heating technologies and the one-size fits all, top-down approach.

This is despite the government’s own analysis showing that about 20% of rural homes won’t be suitable for air source heat pumps and rural homes being consistently overlooked by schemes such as the Energy Company Obligation. Independent analysis from LGUK suggests this could be even higher.

A recent consultation to expand the technologies available under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) is a case in point. While the decision to include air-to-air heat pumps and ‘heat batteries’ is further acknowledgment that air source heat pumps will not be suitable for every home, and alternative low carbon heating technologies are required, we are disappointed that hybrid heat pumps are still not included.

The government contends that supporting hybrids, which combine a heat pump alongside a gas boiler, will lock in continued fossil fuel use. However, many off-gas grid homes have high heat demand, which can make them unsuitable for using heat pumps alone without expensive and disruptive property retrofit. Hybrids offer a flexible solution that can reduce emissions and, importantly for consumers, household bills. When combined with Renewable Liquid Gases (RLGs) such as bioLPG (or biopropane) – a low carbon, renewable and direct substitute for conventional LPG – hybrids offer a long term, net zero compatible solution for many off-gas grid rural properties.

A new report from Rural England which investigates the challenges associated with electrifying heat in rural communities such as Gloucestershire, where the research was focused. Researchers identified several themes that the government should consider when developing policies such as the Warm Homes Plan.

Importantly, the report identified an observed tension between what works for rural homeowners - such as access to different kinds of low carbon technologies suitable for their properties- and what government schemes are currently incentivizing (such as heat pumps or solar panels).

The report found the lack of appropriate technologies was a barrier to behavioural change and recommended that the government should seek to plug into the nuance of rural life and living (particularly community resilience) to achieve positive change. One way of doing this is to acknowledge that rural households may need access to different low-carbon technology solutions.

Hybrid heat pumps have been particularly popular in places such as Scotland and the Netherlands where they have had grant support. Government should take the opportunity via the current consultation on BUS and ahead of the Warm Homes Plan to commit to hybrid heat pumps and send a clear signal to the market, installers and households of their valuable role in decarbonising off-gas grid properties.