@sunandair 

Theres a lot going on here in this post Lucia... can you help me understand your thoughts a bit better. Where has your research taken you? perhaps précis it down and summarise where you think the real progress is being made?

I started this thread hoping to provoke a discussion on decarbonisation and poverty/low incomes. I linked to two articles: one on the OBR's reference to further levies being weighted onto future electricity prices; NESO's report talking about so-called 'flexibility'.

Both of these things could have enormously bad repercussions for the low-waged and thus any feasible energy transition. In case it's not obvious - 'flexibility' is not much fun if you can't afford the batteries and other kit to mitigate it and the danger is it will be offered as a 'choice' along the lines of 'saving money'.  I've noted elsewhere, some of those peak electricity times are unavoidable for families with kids who have to do homework, play, eat supper and go to bed for school. Or for the frail or elderly. 

It only takes the election of climate nay-sayers to derail any transition. It was quite reassuring to hear Clem Cowton, (a female, energy company departmental boss) - echo my thoughts particularly as she made it clear she was talking about the wider economic impact and not only the direct cost of de-carbonisation. 

In other words energy transitions are about a lot more than heat pumps and tech. And you don't win votes by talking down or indeed, over the tops of heads, or ignoring people's very real struggles which is too often the way these things are communicated. 

I was hoping the thread would stay on this important topic and every further comment by me underpins those aims - including a reminder that NESO is neither 'independent' nor able to ignore the Treasury or numerous other political currents. As is the case with any other ministerial departments. That's just how government works.  

My reference to gas pricing is also an attempt to bring things back down to earth. It's not going to 'go away'. 

So, two things: 1) please keep this thread on track; 2) I don't do 'answers' - my work/job/how I eat - is to research and report. Answers are what others do!  (although I may have opinions if b̶r̶i̶b̶e̶d̶ plied with good food or decent quality rum 😁)

Happy to share that work when it is done but it's not going to be any time soon nor in forums on the internet, beyond linking.

One more thing - even though they are mortgage payers, people in Shared Ownership housing are not allowed to claim the BUS grant... 🙁

Back to the point.... what are your thoughts on decarbonisation, energy transitions and low incomes?  

@lucia Martin Lewis (of Money Saving Expert fame) has made this very same point about the low waged and unemployed portion of the population and their inability to avail themselves of any tariff cheapening measures.

It is ironic that those (like myself) who can afford to buy into the low tariffs, energy storage and PV production devices and thus save some costs on their consumed energy can benefit whilst the low waged can do ‘sod all’ to help themselves and thus elevate their situation - nor have they any prospects of ever being able to do so as far as they can see. My observations - but I have no solutions. Regards, Toodles.

Posted by: @lucia

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Back to the point.... what are your thoughts on decarbonisation, energy transitions and low incomes?  

OK so as a starter for 10

1. You need to start with the presumption that it MUST be done, no ifs, no buts, JFDI.  If you don't start with this presumption then its almost not worth having the discussion at all because you can always talk yourself out of anything inconvenient.
2. I do start with that presumption, because that's what the science says unequivocally, if we are to stand any chance of not creating hell on earth for our children and grandchildren (and for ourselves in some, perhaps many, cases)
3. There are, so far as I am aware, four main components of our carbon footprint as individuals, namely heating, food, transport and stuff (material goods). 
4. I presume that here we are talking here only about heating.  Fortunately we have, for this one, a technical solution that doesn't require a lifestyle change.  The others do and so are, if anything, more difficult for that reason alone.  
5. I have seen no evidence that there is any mass market solution other than heat pumps likely to be available in the timescale we need.  'Hydrogen Ready' is just greenwashing by the boiler manufacturers and fossil fuel merchants, because there is currently no way to produce green hydrogen at a price which is comparable to the cost of using electricity to power a heat pump.  That doesn't mean that there wont be uses for hydrogen, or niche solutions other than heat pumps, but for the most part its heat pumps we are talking of
6. We fit (in the UK) about 1.6M gas boilers a year, of which 1.4M are retrofits.  So its furthermore fair to say that the big market to tackle is retrofits and that we need to be targeting 1.6M heat pumps per year
7. That said, we build (if we are lucky) 200,000 units of accommodation per year and I can see no reason why heat pumps should not be compulsory for every one, because the effect on the build cost is negligible and anyway much less than retrofit
8. In relation to poorer people, which you specifically mention, the big issues I see are (1) many poorer people do not own their own homes - so we must bring landlords into the equation (2) there is a capital cost for the conversion which people of limited means simply cant afford but, on the plus side, (3) the running cost of a heat pump, unless we load even more 'policy costs' onto electricity (which really need to be on gas) is essentially the same as a gas boiler
9. So to first order we are dealing with the cost and motivation for conversion, for homeowners and landlords.
10. We also need to consider flats.  A piecemeal solution isn't going to work so we urgently need to work out what solutions we are going to adopt and make these permitted development.  Ideally the element of individual control should remain, but I accept that may not be possible in all cases.  There are probably a variety of 'classes' of flat that need to be dealt with but to start that discussion is a whole new topic.
11. Now to return to the people involved I would say the following (please note that I own my own home, am also a very small-time landlord, and a taxpayer - its important to say that so you know where my selfish interests lie)
    • Landlords should be compelled, over a period of (say) 10 years starting soon, to replace gas boilers with heat pumps.  Its clear that their tenants cant do this and, by compelling landlords, the conversion for many of the poorest is sorted.  Obviously this is not straightforward, but it is necessary.  Landlords who don't wish to do this have the time to get out of the business.  Property prices may suffer a bit (probably not), but so be it.  Its possible that some support is needed for landlords in areas where rents are low, but not in much of the country where they are high.
    • Householders should likewise be compelled to replace gas boilers with heat pumps, essentially by banning new gas boiler installs so once a boiler fails there is no choice.  Obviously some of the blocking factors have got to be sorted such as planning consent and solutions for flats, but this is all possible if you accept the premise that it must be done.  Again there needs to be some notice, so householders can do whatever prep is necessary in a controlled way.  The notice, however, must be shorter than one Parliament so there is certainty (which means it needs to be enacted early on in any Parliament)
    • The issue with the transition is not really the heat pump, its the rest of the system that also (sometimes) needs to be upgraded.  We should explicitly recognise this and develop policies/technologies accordingly.  We should also stop being quite so purist and accept that piecemeal upgrades of the rest of the system may be what people can afford, and may even show that upgrades thought to be necessary aren't always so.
    • Taxpayers should continue to provide some support for the transition.   Consideration should be given for this being means tested (at a fairly high threshold) and/or becoming an interest free loan to be repaid over (say) five-10 years.  It should be scaled back progressively as we get better at fine tuning what needs to be done, but I'm not sure it will ever be zero
    • Yes this does meant that the richer people will need to subsidise the transition for the poorer people (currently, I rather suspect, its working the other way round, with funds from general taxation subsidising predominantly people who could in fact afford to pay.  Thats probably necessary to kick start the industry, but is not the way forward)
12. How do I justify the use of 'should' (which is obviously controversial) in the above - because if we accept it must be done then I can see no other way, in broad terms, to do it, not least because too many people will rebel against costs which, to them, genuinely are unaffordable (as opposed to 'unaffordable' because it means sacrificing a foreign holiday, a yacht, or something else not actually needed)
13. We need to start talking about it more as a problem for us not a problem for them.  Governments don't cause climate change, people do.  Governments can only facilitate mitigation measures, and can only do what the people will accept.
14. All of the above will hurt me personally, and indeed hurt us all.  But the hurt from doing nothing is likely to be far worse.
15. We also need to start talking seriously about managing a declining population.  The will is now there in the west (and elsewhere) to have fewer children, but we cant currently cope with the economic consequences and seem frightened to discuss it.  However population reduction (or, at worst, stabilisation) is inevitably part of the package of measures we need to get humanity onto a sustainable footing.
16. And finally, I shall finish where I started: You need to start with the presumption that it MUST be done, no ifs, no buts, JFDI.  If you don't start with this presumption then its almost not worth having the discussion at all because you can always talk yourself out of anything inconvenient.

If you were to ask me 'what do I think the chances are of this happening' I would fairly certain, but only when its far too late.  I fear that we will continue to deny that its our problem for the foreseeable future/claim we cant afford it ...   I also fear that there is a not insignificant probability that the super-rich will end up in air conditioned luxury bunkers, whilst everyone else survives (or not) in increasingly cramped and/or hellish conditions.    

All of the above is a personal opinion, although some of it is supported by plain scientific fact.

@toodles Oh, thank you for that. Shall put him on my list of people to interview for the low income section (He did the same postgrad journalism course as me - with a dramatically different impact on post-training income... 😁😂).

@jamespa Oh you absolute star. Thank you for this - I shall read it in depth later (instead of using it as a 'displacement activity' when I'm supposed to be working. 😁)but it looks really well-thought out.

@lucia Perhaps I might add a ‘me too’ to James’s views? .. and he says it so much more eloquently than I might! 😉

I regard myself as fortunate in my upbringing and financial standing. I wasn’t ever well paid but never had a day of unemployment since starting work at 15 and 3/4’s, never smoked, gambled, taken holidays, owned a scooter or car and don’t drink; I’m a miserable and unsociable git who has never frequented clubs or dance clubs but saved my earnings and put them into savings for ‘a rainy day’, my rainy day has come in the form of renewable energy projects. 😊 Regards, Toodles. (Oh sorry! - I got carried away there!)

@lucia 

Defining who is missing out on funding is definitely wide and varied and perhaps inconsistent to what you are concerned about. Locally to me it all depends on what you mean by poor or low income households.

However there are local low cost housing sectors where things do appear to be happening in our rural Gloucestershire neighbourhood. I have witnessed in our village our local authority very active with old housing stock. We have a couple of streets in our village where all the council owned rental properties have been completely overhauled with external insulation and cladding, heat pump installation and where the roof permits ; solar arrays. This has been done systematically and quite thoroughly and with no cost to the occupants. I even had a meeting with the installer foreman and supervisor who talked me through the method of insulation.

However the people who missed out on this retrofit schedule of works were the slightly more aspiring and slightly wealthier occupiers who had bought their property. For them there was no free installation.

Furthermore we have had 2 modest new-build estates, built 4 years apart. The first estate were all fitted with gas boilers while the second estate was entirely fitted with heat pumps. This was including the premium houses and all low cost housing.

So in our village by far the greatest occupier group who own a heat pump at this moment in time is the council rental occupier within the low cost and social housing group. There are a small number of entrepreneurial home owners who have had heat pumps installed but the majority housing stock of middle-income, privately owned rural cottages and bungalow stock are the least likely to have a heat pump.

Im not sure if this helps but I hope it’s of interest.

Posted by: @sunandair

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Im not sure if this helps but I hope it’s of interest.

It's certainly of interest, and I also think it helps, because it reminds of two things, firstly that it can be the marginal groups - in this case the 'not quite poor' - that end up disadvantaged, and secondly just how complex these things can be. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that. 

Posted by: @sunandair

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Defining who is missing out on funding is definitely wide and varied and perhaps inconsistent to what you are concerned about. Locally to me it all depends on what you mean by poor or low income households.

My local borough Council amassed this data as the Coronavirus pandemic spread in 2019.
Vulnerable households were identified across a range of criteria, whether they appeared on any official lists or not.
Not knowing how the virus would adversely affect people or for how long, meant that each Ward and Parish Councillor needed to ensure that no one was left out of contact.

That is obviously highly confidential data, and well protected.
But there are scenarios in which this could be used to contact 'poor', 'low income' and high risk households for other reasons, such as energy poverty.

Living in a rural area does offer significant advantages.
Neighbours usually have meaningful conversations.
When you're asked "How are you?", a simple, polite "Alright" response isn't generally accepted as the end of conversation!

This is a valuable foundation on which an energy-related initiative can be built.

@sunandair 

So in our village by far the greatest occupier group who own a heat pump at this moment in time is the council rental occupier within the low cost and social housing group. There are a small number of entrepreneurial home owners who have had heat pumps installed but the majority housing stock of middle-income, privately owned rural cottages and bungalow stock are the least likely to have a heat pump.

My first encounter with a heat pump was in a council house I used to visit. I didn't notice the heat pump which was mounted high up near the apex of the roof, I noticed the even heat throughout the building. I really liked it.

It seems to me that council/housing association properties are the easy ones. For the council/HA landlords it is an investment and there's probably a cost benefit in installing in multiple properties.

The electricity bills may be high for the tenants though particularly as HAs have a tendency to try and 'idiot proof' controls by installing the ubiquitous Honeywell. Down here the council insulates properties and some now have heatbpumps but I've never heard of anyone receiving batteries or solar. 

But yes, the home owners with limited means - Theresa May's 'Just About Managing' - JAMs are difficult - even if they replace a gas boiler for a heat pump at similar cost, the energy bills may be too much. For pensioners who lost the WFA but are a couple of quid over the limit to claim pension credit, it could be excruciating. 

I live rurally too and here wages are low and opportunities are not great. But there's also a lack of trust even amongst those with higher incomes. There's heat pumps in the district but I'm the first in my village. 

The first estate were all fitted with gas boilers while the second estate was entirely fitted with heat pumps. This was including the premium houses and all low cost housing.

The second one is what's needed and the first one shouldn't be permitted any more but regulation won't happen - major house builders fund all our big political parties. My neighbour was piping gas into her home for the first time ever at the same time my heat pump was going in and my gas supply was removed. My installers got really stressed watching it so close. 

I was driving up the M5 the other day spotting new builds with two little solar panels plonked in the middle of the roof like plasters. It looked like they may boil a kettle in midsummer in a heat wave. 

But in Bristol I looked at some gorgeous shared-ownership houses that had been fitted out with pumps, solar and batteries and beautifully future-proofed by the developer. This is rare and apparently they got buyers in minutes when they went on the market. But even at Shared Ownership half mortgage half rent prices, they were not 'cheap'. 

The next (biggish) village to me the residents are fighting a planning application for grid level batteries 'because they look ugly and might catch fire'. No one is doing the necessary PR to try and explain the benefits. 

@transparent 

Living in a rural area does offer significant advantages.
Neighbours usually have meaningful conversations.
When you're asked "How are you?", a simple, polite "Alright" response isn't generally accepted as the end of conversation!

This is a valuable foundation on which an energy-related initiative can be built.

Yes absolutely! Literally ground up. No overseas development project these days would get funding without addressing this grass roots stuff but here it tends to be a quick box ticking exercise labelled 'consultation' and they're gone. 

Posted by: @sunandair

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However there are local low cost housing sectors where things do appear to be happening in our rural Gloucestershire neighbourhood. I have witnessed in our village our local authority very active with old housing stock. We have a couple of streets in our village where all the council owned rental properties have been completely overhauled with external insulation and cladding, heat pump installation and where the roof permits ; solar arrays. This has been done systematically and quite thoroughly and with no cost to the occupants. I even had a meeting with the installer foreman and supervisor who talked me through the method of insulation.

In contrast, locally to where I live, 3000 houses have been thrown up in the past 5 years, selling at 350k - 600k +, with not a single heat pump and barely any solar panels in sight.  Even where there are solar panels its 3 on a roof that could easily take 6 or 8. 

This should be an easy win as the marginal cost is negligible, but of course builders cut every possible corner unless compelled not to.