York Community Energy group calls for more action on insulation
The group says we need to watch how much energy we're consuming.
Campaigners in York are calling for more action on energy efficiency to help keep bills down and to help the environment.
York Community Energy are giving their response to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, against the backdrop of targets at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
Tom de Simone is the Chair of York Community Energy:
"I think COP26 is positive in places and the latest pledges from various Governments has seen us to get to an estimated 1.9 degrees Celsius increase in temperature, which is closer to the 1.5 level that we need to get to. It's slowly moving in the right direction.
"I think it's good for bringing the issues to the forefront and it's playing on people's minds a lot at the moment. It's a good opportunity to remind people of what we do and how people can help reduce emissions.
"COP26 is about governments of the world needing to take decisive action; it's great when people want to do things to help individually, but it's very important that governments play their part as well".
Earlier this year the UK government published their Heat and Buildings Strategy, including the Boiler Upgrade Scheme starting in April 2022, which is a £5k grant for customers switching to an air source heat pump, or £6k for those switching to a ground source heat pump.
Tom says the proposals are a good start, but not enough on their own:
"It's definitely got potential, but could have gone further. Giving people £5,000 off an air source heat pump is a good start, but that's only going to cover 90,000 installations over three years, so some people who might want the discount might not be getting one.
"It should inject a bit of life into the heat pump market. It's going to be really important that something else comes after this announcement to keep up the momentum.
"What would be really great from us is to see more action on energy efficiency, so that means insulating or retrofitting homes - anything that helps to reduce their heating demand in the first place.
"We need to watch how much energy we're consuming, and insulating a home can help to reduce your bills whether you're on a gas boiler or air source heat pump. Once you've got the fabric of the house sorted you can look at the heating solutions.
"Heat pumps better than you would expect, but they will work more efficiently - and cost less on energy bills - if you have a well insulated home to start with".