“Let’s shift our focus to our customers” – industry reactions to the new government

“Let’s shift our focus from the election outcome to what the next few years hold for our customers.

“As we move beyond the recent election and look ahead to the next few years, it’s important to shift our focus to the issues that directly impact our customers. One such significant issue is the transition towards renewable liquid heating fuels.

“During the last parliamentary term, we successfully persuaded all political parties that a Renewable Liquid Heating Fuel Obligation (RLHFO) was the right approach to help the 1.7 million rural homes using fossil fuels transition to renewable liquid heating fuels. The RLHFO provides a cost-effective and least disruptive pathway for these households to contribute to the decarbonisation of the UK’s heating sector. It also aligns with the new government’s objective of achieving clean power by 2030 and, importantly, it doesn’t impose additional strain on the electricity capacity requirements in rural areas.

“Despite the recent changes in political representation in over 50% of the 100 constituencies where the majority of our customers live, we remain optimistic about maintaining cross-party support for this initiative. It’s reassuring that the Labour Party’s manifesto commitment that no one will be forced to replace their boiler fits with our proposed solution.

“As we embark upon this new political landscape, we will engage and collaborate with all MPs across the country to address the unique challenges our customers face and ensure a deep understanding of rural heating issues.”

Mark Krull, Director for Logic4training & LCL Awards:

It’s clear that change was what the British public wanted, let’s hope it’s for the better and Labour delivers on its promises. Some of its environmental policies look particularly interesting, such as the Local Power Plan and Great British Energy, encouraging a community approach to net zero that should provide a boost to local installers; all of the policies outlined relating to our sector will call for a trained and expanded workforce.

Griff Thomas, MD for GTEC & Heatly:

It will be interesting to see what the next five years bring. With a strong focus on improving home standards, including bringing rental properties up to band C, there should be plenty of opportunities for installers in the building services and energy efficiency retrofit sectors.

What’s most important is that we stick to the programme, flip flopping of environmental policy is extremely damaging and dents confidence in installers and consumers. I would like to see the plan for our path to net zero set for the next ten years.”

Mark Wilkins, Technologies and Training Director at Vaillant: 

As a UK manufacturer, there is a sizeable green opportunity that net zero presents, providing new jobs and investment to support the critical reduction in carbon emissions.  

While there is no silver bullet, heat pumps are key in heating the UK’s future housing stock. For heat pumps to continue to make an impact on net zero, we must address the fabric of buildings, look to improve the current home heating systems, upskill the workforce and increase consumer engagement. 

According to the previous government, approximately 80% of the UK housing stock is suitable for a heat pump installation, however, some of these properties could be considered as complex to decarbonise and need fabric improvements for a heat pump system to be efficient. We therefore welcome the manifesto pledge of £6.6 billion into the Warm Homes Plan, which will aim to upgrade 5 million homes and cut bills for families through insulation and other measures, including heat pump installs. We look forward to details surrounding home upgrades to be clarified in the coming weeks. 

Engaging consumers must be a priority, heat pumps are the lowest carbon heating solution and therefore, should reward homes with lower energy cost-savings.  We urge the new government to make the rebalancing of gas and electricity tariffs a priority, encouraging more consumers to upgrade to a heat pump in order to meet decarbonisation targets.

The Government’s manifesto in focus

As the dust settles, all eyes are now firmly on the new Labour Government to see just how it plans to deliver on its promise of ‘making Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030’.

There are some big, and bold, headline actions included in the manifesto which could potentially be transformative for the energy industry – plans to create 650,000 new jobs, to invest £8.3bn in a new publicly-owned energy company, £6.6bn to upgrade homes and to offer grants and low interest loans for domestic renewables – for example.

But as always, the devil will be in the detail and everyone is waiting with bated breath to see how the new policies will impact them.

A number of key measures were included in the manifesto and it now falls to new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, to make good on them.

The key energy pledges

Clean power by 2030

• Double onshore wind, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind by 2030
• Invest in carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and marine energy
• The lifetime of existing nuclear plants will be extended
• A strategic reserve of oil fields and gas power stations will be maintained – existing licences will not be revoked, but new ones won’t be issued

Great British Energy

• Create a new publicly-owned company called Great British Energy
• Invest £8.3bn to create jobs and build supply chains across the UK, including to facilitate local energy production

Energy system reform

• Work with industry to upgrade national transmission infrastructure and rewire Britain
• Ensure a tougher system of regulation that puts customers first

Warm Homes Plan

• Invest an extra £6.6bn over the next parliament to upgrade five million homes to cut bills
• Offer grants and low interest loans to support investment in insulation and improvements such as solar panels, batteries and low carbon heating
• Work with private sector to provide further private finance to accelerate home upgrades
• Ensure homes in private rented meet minimum energy efficiency standards by 2030

High-quality jobs

• Invest in industries of the future through the National Wealth Fund to create 650,000 new jobs by 2030
• Reward clean energy developers with a British Jobs Bonus, allocating up to £500m per year from 2026

Accelerating to net zero

• Support the introduction of a carbon border adjustment mechanism
• Make the UK the ‘green finance capital of the world’, mandating UK-regulated financial institutions to implement credible transition plans that align with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris agreement

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