2 April 2022 | New Scientist | 21More Insight online
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newscientist.com/insightis marginal, Evans calculates the
saving will be about £240 a year
from October.
Crucially, April also sees the
launch of the government’s Boiler
Upgrade Scheme, giving 30,000
homes a year a £5000 grant
towards a heat pump. Octopus
Energy claims it can match the
cost of a gas boiler installation
when the grant is factored in.
Louise Hutchins at the UKGBC
says the cost of heat pumps will
fall too, as production and installs
ramp up. Gas will also get more
expensive and electricity cheaper,
because the UK government has
promised to shift the green levies
onto gas bills over the next decade.
Of course, payback periods for
different technologies will depend
on how many years energy prices
stay at current highs. Before
Russia’s invasion, analysts had
expected wholesale energy prices
to fall later this year, but that has
been undone. High costs are
now anticipated to continue
well into 2023, but there is a huge
uncertainty looking further out.
Few in society want such prices
to persist. Nonetheless, Simon
Cran-McGreehin at the Energy
and Climate Intelligence Unit
think tank believes “all bets are
off ” because geopolitics could be
messy for years. “I think there’s a
need to start thinking about this
in terms of an insurance policy,”
he says of green home measures.
However, while the financial
calculations for those measures
may have changed dramatically, it
doesn’t necessarily mean a wave of
home energy retrofits will sweep
the UK. Gross says all the “non-
price barriers” remain, including
lack of information, lack of access
to capital, disruption and fear of
builders. “This kind of idea that
because the relative economics
of something have changed, it will
just kind of magically happen: all
the research evidence tells us that
that’s not true.”
An absence of good advice is a
big issue, says Rosenow. “A lot of
what is online is out of date and
based on old prices,” he says. The
Energy Saving Trust, which is
intended to be the main impartial
source of information for
consumers, is still using existing
energy prices even though the
April price cap was announced
in February. It says it is working
to update its figures in line with
post-April energy costs.
Overcoming hurdles is where
the government has a role to play,
says Gross. That could involve
helping with upfront capital costs
or loans. Previous government
schemes – notably the 2012 to
2015 Green Deal and 2020 to 2021
Green Homes Grant – have been
short-lived and poorly executed.
“But that doesn’t mean that we
have to do it badly,” says Gross.
Government support will
also be important for the training
and certification of installers,
to assuage consumer fears of
“cowboys”, he adds. Another lever
the government could pull is to
make stamp duty when buying
a property ramp up or down
based on the home’s energy
performance, says Adams.
In the meantime, the terrible
humanitarian situation in Ukraine
could prove a more powerful spur
for households than financial and
environmental concerns. People
have already taken to social media
to post about how they have
turned down their boiler flow
temperatures and thermostats.
Bigger steps, such as energy
retrofits of the whole house,
could be next. Rosenow says:
“There’s the emotional driver,
where people feel, ‘I really
don’t want to use gas any more:
I want to reduce that for moral
reasons, to support Ukraine’.” ❚Heat pumps are on the verge of becoming cheaper
to run than gas boilers in the UK because of high
energy prices
The horizontal axis shows efficiencies for heat pumps, measured
as coefficient of performance (COP). The vertical axis is energy bill
costs compared with using a gas boiler: a positive figure is more
expensive, a negative one cheaper2.6 2.8 3.0 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4.0−£600−£500−£400−£300−£200−£100£0£100£200Oct 2020 price cap Apr 2021 Oct 2021 Apr 2022
Oct 2022After the 1 April price cap,
a heat pump with a COP of 3
will become a fraction
cheaper to run than a gas boilerBut the savings will become much
bigger under the October 2022 price capCHART: NEW SCIENTIST• SOURCE : CARBONBRIEF / INVESTECEnergy price rises in October 2022 mean the
payback period for solar panels would fall to less
than a decade
The speed of payback depends on what energy suppliers charge
for electricity and on what percentage of the panels' electricity athe VAT cut on solar panels announced in the spring statement0.20 p/kWh 0.30 0.40 0.5005101520 years25% 35% 45% 55%Some analysts are projecting
electricity prices may reach 45p
per kilowatt hour under a new
price cap in October 2022Payback^
periodCHART: NEW SCIENTIST • SOURCE: CARBONBRIEFhousehold consumes rather than exports. These figures factor in