Does the recent call for Government policy & planning reset propose the best solution to energy issues?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Just days ago, Britain’s chief infrastructure adviser, Sir John Armitt, publicly called for what has been dubbed a ‘Government reset’ on decision-making and infrastructure planning in order to deliver energy, transport and other key networks over the next 3 decades, whilst making a number of recommendations to resolve these issues, including subsidising the costs associated with installing heat pumps.

In the second National Infrastructure Assessment - released by the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) last week - Sir John highlights the need for greater policy stability in order to attract the private sector funding needed to supplement public investment in the vital infrastructure our country needs to deliver energy security and build up effective supply chains.

Alongside this, however, are a number of other key recommendations made by the NIC, such as:

• Implementing reforms to meet a 65% recycling target by 2035, and phasing out energy from waste plants without carbon capture facilities

• Rule out the use of hydrogen for heating and focus the emerging hydrogen economy on power generation and industrial decarbonisation.

• Creating a new strategic energy reserve to boost Great Britain’s economic security

• Government fully subsidising the costs of installing heat pumps for 1/3rd of households – based on income – whilst offering £7,000 support to all others

Absolutely, the NIC’s Assessment makes for interesting reading and encouraging private sector funding and investment in infrastructure and the energy network is and always will be key to achieving the energy security the UK needs; investment and funding something we often discuss here at PWCL.

However, the NIC’s recommendation to invest significantly in heat pumps is what really piqued our interest, especially as geothermal energy is most definitely in its infancy here in the UK, and for very good reason - over and above the lack of or challenges associated with funding and investment opportunities.

Indeed, avid readers of our news section and email newsletter will have noticed that we just published an article on geothermal energy in the UK and the barriers associated with adoption, namely:

• The high upfront costs

• The lack of high enthalpy resources

• The availability of cheap fossil fuels (excluding recent years)

Essentially, geothermal technology and extracting geothermal energy from deep under the ground here in the UK is currently very complex, very expensive and the expected yield is just not enough to outway the risks of widespread adoption.

Within this, considering heat pumps specifically, ground source heat pumps that can be installed at individual homes come with a pretty big price tag to property owners - typically costing between £10,000 and £20,000, not including an annual servicing fee of around £300.

And, considering there were a reported 28.2 million households here in the UK as of 2022, a fully subsidised heat pump for 1/3rd of UK households would cost the government between £94 and £188 million.

This, however, doesn’t account for the £7000 proposed to help 2/3rd of UK households invest in heat pumps - which would cost the government a further £131.6 million - and the then £3000 to £13,000 those households would have to find to have heat pumps installed at their properties.

Of course, what the NIC’s Assessment does is offer blue sky thinking and potential solutions to some of the very real and very urgent energy security issues we’ve been facing here in the UK for some years - solutions which, on the whole, could very much lead to some significant, positive change; the Assessment doing a good job of urging the government to rethink their approach and commit to certain decisions - a move which must be commended.

Our question is whether heat pumps really are the way forward given, not only the cost and uncertainty that comes with geothermal energy in the UK, but also the current lack of geothermal projects; accounting for a little less than 0.3% of the UK's annual heat demand as of 2021.

Would investment in tried and tested renewable energy solutions such as anaerobic digestion and Energy from Waste plants be a better solution for the UK’s energy security in the coming years?