Government announces £14 million in funding to help households move to low carbon heating
The government has announced that more than £14 million is being made available to accelerate the installation of heat pumps and heat networks across the country, as a new scheme launches to train thousands of installers.
Over £9.7 million will go towards four projects under the Heat Pump Ready programme with the intention to help cut the costs of these low carbon technologies and reducing disruption to consumers by coordinating wide-spread rollout in concentrated areas.
To support the move to cleaner energy in homes, a new £5 million Heat Training Grant will support 10,000 trainees over the next two years to become low carbon heating experts. Grants of up to £500 will go towards training with heating manufacturers such as Panasonic, Valliant and Worcester-Bosch expected to offer additional discounts to participating trainees.
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Lord Callanan, said:
“This funding will give the rollout of heat pumps a huge boost by making them cheaper and easier to install, and importantly helping more households move away from costly fossil fuels.
“But we need a skilled workforce to deliver this, so we’re training thousands of people to be experts at installing heat pumps and heat networks, driving the country’s push towards net zero.
“We’re also making sure the cost of installing a heat pump is more affordable than ever before through grants of up to £6,000 through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and a zero rate on VAT. So, it’s right we also put funding in place to train installers to meet demand.”
The projects are successful bidders in the second phase of the government’s £60 million Heat Pump Ready programme. Two of the projects will be in Oxfordshire and one each in Bristol and Cambridgeshire.
To meet expected demand, the Heat Training Grant will provide heating engineers with grants of up to £500 towards training.
The government hopes that the grant could cover most of the cost of a level 3 heat pump course, which takes one week or less for an experienced gas or oil heating installer to complete. In addition, heating manufacturers including Baxi, NIBE, Panasonic, Vaillant, Ideal Heating and Worcester-Bosch are expected to offer additional discounts and offers to participating trainees.
The heat networks training courses will cover the full lifecycle of the systems from initial design to building, operation, and maintenance. The government is also aiming to develop a series of courses and online training videos for heat networks operation and maintenance.
By providing heat networks training support alongside heat pumps, it is hoped areas of overlap and collaboration can be better explored, particularly around the installation of large-scale heat pumps for heat networks and shared ground loops.
The government is now seeking expressions of interest from training providers who wish to offer the new grants for heat pump training.
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