Last night (18 October) the government announced the key elements that will feature in its long-awaited Heat and Buildings Strategy. 

The key elements of the strategy are: 

• Plans to drive down the cost of low carbon heating technologies, such as heat pumps 
• Households can access government grants of £5,000 in their Boiler Upgrade Scheme to help them install low carbon heating technologies, a scheme set at £450 million
• A £60 million innovation fund has been launched to make heating systems smaller and easier to install and cheaper to run 

There have been mixed reactions to the strategy, with some lauding its aims and what it will do for the industry, but others saying it lacks the ambition, scale and funding required to make the difference we need to decarbonise our homes. 

Some suggest that the £450 million being allocated for the low carbon heating grant programme across three years is will only cover the installation of a maximum 90,000 heat pumps. This is far below the government target of installing 600,000 heat pumps by 2028. 

Read some media responses to the article:

• BBC
• The Guardian
• Edie

And some responses on Twitter:

And here it is! The long awaited UK Heat and Buildings Strategy. 202 pages long plus annexes. What’s in it? The good, the bad and the ugly. @beisgovuk

THREADhttps://t.co/oC5PFiphQF pic.twitter.com/B7woYcFTle

— Jan Rosenow (@janrosenow) October 19, 2021

I know no one on climate / energy Twitter has mentioned it, but the Net Zero Strategy is out. Some thoughts based on a first read…https://t.co/oa3l7mPQtN

— Tim Lord (@timbolord) October 19, 2021

THREAD. The most fundamental document published by Government yesterday was the Net Zero Review, which frames how Government thinks about Net Zero. So, what’s my verdict?

It covers the key elements of the transition, but should be less reliant on neoclassical economics.

— Jon Stenning (@jon_stenning) October 20, 2021