Energy White Paper – Government confirms £6.7bn warm homes package and UK ETS
14th December 2020 | Residential Energy
The UK Government has finally released its Energy White Paper, detailing steps to deliver “overwhelmingly decarbonised power in the 2030s”, with a new £6.7bn support scheme to be set up to tackle fuel poverty and a UK variant of the Emissions Trading Scheme to be introduced. The Energy White Paper has been delayed numerous times in 2020, but the Government finally detailed what the strategy entails on Monday [14 December]. It builds on the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution and the National Infrastructure Strategy (NIS) in outlining how the nation plans to transform its power and heating systems to support the net-zero emissions target for 2050. Specifically, the Government believes new measures will help cut emissions from industry, transport and buildings by 230 million metric tonnes over the next 10 years – equivalent to taking 7.5 million petrol cars off the road permanently.
Energy white paper
While the publication of the paper has been long-awaited, the new detail listed by the Government is surprisingly sparse. Instead, the White Paper reiterates numerous decarbonisation commitments that were revealed in both the Ten Point Plan and the NIS. It does include a £6.7bn support system for fuel poor households that will run for six years. The package is designed to save families in old inefficient homes up to £400. In addition, the Warm Home Discount Scheme to 2026 will be delivered to cover 750,000 UK householders by giving them £150 off electricity bills each winter. The White Paper also confirms that the £2bn Green Homes Grant announced in the summer will be extended by a further year, as envisioned in the Ten Point Plan.
In addition, installations of electric heat pumps are scheduled to grow from 30,000 per year to 600,000 by 2038. The White Paper also raises ambitious on industrial clusters, pledging to deliver four low-carbon clusters by 2030 and at least on net-zero variant by 2040.
More information available on the website below