Posted by: @jamespa

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Posted by: @judith

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2 physics degrees in the household)

Wow that's going some!  No excuse for not understanding it then!

Yes! Our method of working is one of us does the analysis/ research (which is me on renewable stuff) and the other checks the logic and arithmetic. It makes for some tedious & technical household discussion for the fly on the wall, but it works for us.

Posted by: @abernyte

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That kerosene price continues to haunt me though. I can't see how the most polluting heating fuel is allowed to be sold at such low price. Where is an environmentally motivated government when you need one?

Our Government doesn't set oil prices (because we dont contribute enough to the global capacity), the governments of despot states do.  

They are like drug dealers, manipulating the prices to hook people/keep people hooked, with the intention of ramping them up when it suits them.  That's why we need to cut our long term dependency and why it makes absolute sense to keep our own limited reserves in the ground for some future occasion when, for whatever reason, we desperately need them!  Those who advocate a 'drill drill drill' policy for the UK are, IMHO, economically irresponsible, as well as being irresponsible from a climate perspective.

Posted by: @jamespa

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Our Government doesn't set oil prices (because we dont contribute enough to the global capacity),

Agreed, they do however control taxation which could readily increase the user price as a disincentive to use. It seems to be working for electricity!

Posted by: @abernyte

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Posted by: @jamespa

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Our Government doesn't set oil prices (because we dont contribute enough to the global capacity),

Agreed, they do however control taxation which could readily increase the user price as a disincentive to use. It seems to be working for electricity!

They could, but there are serious political ramifications and relatively little revenue generated.  These political ramifications don't currently exist for electricity as its not yet widely seen as a heating fuel.  Furthermore the 'levies' are positioned as just that not a 'tax' and these levies fund something which is, in the view of some 'stupid'.  Please note that they have been steadily loaded onto electricity not gas since 2011 - you may wish to speculate why that decision was made!

The problem with taxing heating is that its not a 'sin tax', so widely regarded as not acceptable, and immediately the Daily Mail will bring out a pensioner who will claim that they are going to freeze.  So whilst it seems simple in principle, in reality its far from that.

Therefore its simply not going to happen.  The best we can hope for is for the levies to shift off of electricity either onto to general taxation or onto gas.  

I would personally have worded the question differently but it is still an interesting question. 

I don't currently have a heat pump, but when we do install one in our next home I am already expecting zero government grant. 

The significant subsidy were definitely needed in the past, the BUS even had to be bumped up to £7500 to get it going at scale.

The two biggest economies in Europe, Germany and France, both have schemes where part of the grant is means tested and part is universal. So this way everyone gets something and those with less income get more. We are the 3rd largest economy in Europe.

Some tapered scheme might be good,  ideally with a plan for how the grants might change in the rest of this parliament so people can plan. 

I spent 7 years under the last Labour government working on a variety of social policies from targeted to universal services, including seed funding and grants. It is not easy to get it right and there will be cracks. 

It is what it is now.....perhaps if we had banned gas boilers in new homes earlier, this perhaps would have built capability and capacity in installation, produced some good news stories hopefully, and hopefully put at least a little downward pressure on costs and made others think about installing heat pumps. 

The government have to juggle so many things, it isn't easy. 

I had a look at the longitudinal Yougov survey on the top issues of the population. The environment isn't in the top 5 and more interestingly has dropped every single year in importance for the last 5 years and there is no indication it will go up. If I wrote down my top 5 issues for the government, net zero wouldn't be on the list, even though I care. I suspect I would get something similar from my friends and family, even the younger adults who have so many people ssues to contend with.

There is no easy answer at this point. 

@jeff And you need to be a good salesman to sell heat pumps to those with low incomes when we have some of the most expensive energy prices! Toodles.

Posted by: @toodles

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@jeff And you need to be a good salesman to sell heat pumps to those with low incomes when we have some of the most expensive energy prices! Toodles.

There is no easy answer on costs, either capital or energy pricing. Every option has pro and cons. 

For those on very low incomes their priority won't be a heat pump. 

For those on universal credit they are unlikely to have any savings to pay for the heat pump ever. 

For those in private/social rented housing they just leave it to their landlord. 

Etc. 

It sounds like the government are going to do some things on energy costs, there have plenty of news stories and consultations.

1. Potentially changing FIT and ROC inflation index. Also FIT and ROC will come to an end anyway once the subsidies end as they are typically up to 20 years duration.

2. Potentially removing vat from electric bills

3. ECO4 on our bills currently finishes in April 2026. It isn't certain this will be replaced on our bills and may be funded centrally. 

Etc. 

So I personally expect some movement. Social tarrif don't seem to have got any real traction, the closest we have is the warm home discount. 

Some of the current customers £4billion energy debt is going to be written off, but it is still expected to increase. Ofgem have given permission to load our bills to cover some debt write off. One of my brothers was over £4k in debt with their energy bill I found out.... I paid it off. 

For a lot of low income households  a heat pump isn't on their radar at all I suspect.

@jeff Jonathan Tracey has produced a YouTube presentation on the subject of Ofgem recouping the lost millions of bad debt; the proposal is to charge us all an additional £52 next year to cover the debt. Ho-Hum. Regrets Toodles.

Posted by: @toodles

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@jeff Jonathan Tracey has produced a YouTube presentation on the subject of Ofgem recouping the lost millions of bad debt; the proposal is to charge us all an additional £52 next year to cover the debt. Ho-Hum. Regrets Toodles.

@toodles 

Yep, and it is not even a sticking plaster in reality. 

There is a consultation if you want to feed in your thoughts 

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consultation/debt-relief-scheme-statutory-consultation

The £52 is what we already pay on our bills, the consultation is in addition to try and clear even more and add more costs to our bill. 

Posted by: @jeff

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The significant subsidy were definitely needed in the past, the BUS even had to be bumped up to £7500 to get it going at scale.

The two biggest economies in Europe, Germany and France, both have schemes where part of the grant is means tested and part is universal. So this way everyone gets something and those with less income get more. We are the 3rd largest economy in Europe.

It makes sense the gov will need to shift taxes from electricity to gas.

But if they reduce the BUS incentive, what seems to be a growing heat pump market may struggle to adjust and keep the pace. Could it cause a rush followed by a quick slow down, like what happened with the green insulation scheme?

Posted by: @batpred

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Posted by: @jeff

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The significant subsidy were definitely needed in the past, the BUS even had to be bumped up to £7500 to get it going at scale.

The two biggest economies in Europe, Germany and France, both have schemes where part of the grant is means tested and part is universal. So this way everyone gets something and those with less income get more. We are the 3rd largest economy in Europe.

It makes sense the gov will need to shift taxes from electricity to gas.

But if they reduce the BUS incentive, what seems to be a growing heat pump market may struggle to adjust and keep the pace. Could it cause a rush followed by a quick slow down, like what happened with the green insulation scheme?

 

There is absolutely no way the government will shift energy taxes onto gas, it would be political suicide and will increase the heating costs of the vast majority households, especially the lower income ones who are already struggling to pay their bills.

Posted by: @bash

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Posted by: @batpred

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Posted by: @jeff

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The significant subsidy were definitely needed in the past, the BUS even had to be bumped up to £7500 to get it going at scale.

The two biggest economies in Europe, Germany and France, both have schemes where part of the grant is means tested and part is universal. So this way everyone gets something and those with less income get more. We are the 3rd largest economy in Europe.

It makes sense the gov will need to shift taxes from electricity to gas.

But if they reduce the BUS incentive, what seems to be a growing heat pump market may struggle to adjust and keep the pace. Could it cause a rush followed by a quick slow down, like what happened with the green insulation scheme?

 

 

There is absolutely no way the government will shift energy taxes onto gas, it would be political suicide and will increase the heating costs of the vast majority households, especially the lower income ones who are already struggling to pay their bills.

 

I tend to agree.  Presumably this is why since 2011 the electric/gas price ratio has very steadily gone up from 2.5:1 in 2011 to 4:1 in 2020 (after which things got volatile but generally the ratio stayed high).  The pollitical decisiion was obviously made back in 2011 that the costs should be loaded onto electricity to cripple the transition and avoid the political consequence of putting them either on general taxation of gas.