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The UK government should rule out supporting hydrogen as an alternative to natural gas-fired heating in homes and instead spend billions a year subsidising the installation of heat pumps, the UK’s top infrastructure adviser has said.
The National Infrastructure Commission on Wednesday said hydrogen had “no public policy case” to be used for heating individual buildings, and urged the government to focus on helping lower-income households fit heat pumps by providing more financial support.
“We do not see any role for hydrogen in the future of home heating,” said Nick Winser, NIC commissioner, arguing it was “simply not ready at scale” and risked being an inefficient use of green electricity.
The intervention comes as the government grapples with the dilemma of how to reach the UK’s 2050 net zero goal. Rishi Sunak, prime minister, recently diluted targets for phasing out gas boilers, citing the high cost of replacement electric heat pumps.
The NIC urged the government to address the cost issue by giving grants to cover the entire cost of installing heat pumps for lower-income homes, equivalent to about one-third of households, at the cost of £1.3bn a year until 2035. Other properties should be offered support of up to £7,000, equivalent to as much as £1.9bn annually, over the same time period.
The government currently offers grants of £7,500 under a three-year scheme with an annual budget of £150mn until March 2025.
The commission also called for a separate £3.2bn programme to install heat pumps and improve energy efficiency across the public sector estate and all social housing.
The rollout of heat pumps in the UK has been sluggish, in part because of the costs of buying and installing the devices, estimated at £7,000 to £10,000 per household or higher. The government has previously said it planned to decide on hydrogen’s role in home heating in 2026, following trials.
The recommendations were part of the second national infrastructure assessment by the NIC since it was established as an executive agency of the Treasury in 2017. Its recommendations are not binding on the government, but ministers are required to respond within 12 months.
The commission recommends the government establish a “strategic energy reserve” to protect the UK from energy shortages. Other proposals include introducing compulsory water metering to reduce demand and a market-led approach to rolling out 5G broadband.
The report also warned the decision to cancel northern parts of the HS2 rail line had left a “major gap in the UK’s rail strategy”. It called for better maintenance of existing roads, more devolution and bigger local transport budgets as well as £22bn of investment in mass transit schemes in cities including Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol and Manchester.
The NIC criticised the low levels of infrastructure investment in the UK economy compared to international peers, which it said had been the lowest in the G7 in 40 years to 2019. It called on the government to drive a sharp increase from about £55bn per year over the past decade to as much as £80bn per year in the 2030s. It said more than half of that should come from the private sector.
But Jon Phillips, chief executive of the Global Infrastructure Investor Association, said that without a “clear and stable policy environment” this was unlikely to happen, adding that for “global infrastructure investors, the attractiveness of the UK as a destination for private capital has fallen since last year to an all-time low”.
A government spokesperson said it would respond to the NIC “in due course” but added it would continue to work with industry to explore the feasibility of hydrogen in heating as it “could play an important role”.
