- Ministers are set to change subsidy rules as part of their Net Zero strategy
- It will risk increasing gas bills by up to £100 a year, while electricity bills fall
Experts today blasted government plans to force households onto electricity by hiking their gas bills.
Ministers are set to change subsidy rules as part of their Net Zero strategy which will see gas bills increase by £100 a year for millions of households while reducing the cost of electricity.
Heat pumps are among the few viable options to gas boilers to heating a home, but they come at an exorbitant cost - as much as £13,000 to install, it has previously been estimated.
Speaking to MailOnline today, experts called the policy 'wrong for the country', adding that it would penalise those who cannot pay the thousands of pounds required for a heat pump.
Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, accused ministers of 'force the wrong green solution down [the public's] throats' and warned families would be 'hit in the pocket'.
He added: 'Slapping green levies on a gas bill used to keep people warm in winter penalises those who can't afford the £13,000 needed for a heat pump. Those that can afford it now get a £5,000 subsidy and in these plans £100 a year off their energy bills too.
'Under these plans, Doris the pensioner living alone is penalised for trying to keep warm, but it becomes cheaper for Johnnie to play video games all night. That's the wrong priority for this country.'
Ministers want to 'rebalance' levies on the main two types of energy, encouraging people to use electricity instead in a move intended to accelerate the switch to cleaner power.
But Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins said today that there simply were not enough trained engineers to remove to 'take the old stuff out or put the new systems in'.
Mr Mullins, who sold his business in 2021, added that the price of engineers would also increase because the demand for callouts would be so high.
He told MailOnline today: 'It's the poor people who are going to suffer. It's a bad policy, it's again penalising households.
'Talk about £100 a year, but that's only an estimate - the more gas you use, the higher it's going to be. I think it's quite a cheek that they're doing it.
'The other problem is it doesn't work. We don't have enough gas engineers, we don't have enough to take the old stuff out or put the new systems in. So this additional cost could go in for a long time. They won't have the engineers to do the work.
'The other thing is it's going to be an expense to do it. Not only is it going to be another additional cost, and then you've got all the landlords to do it which means it is going to increase rent.
'It's the working class people who are going to have to pay for bad judgement by the government and it's the wrong time to bring out this policy given the prices with the war.'
He continued: 'If you think gas traders are expensive now, when this gets passed they're going to be charging a fortune because they don't have the amount - it's going to be a supply and demand issue.
'Rural areas and communities are reliant on gas out of London, where they don't have two options. It just hasn't been thought about enough, that's for sure.
'They've been pushing us onto new boilers and less emission, so what about all the people who've just had new stuff put in? They don't want to change the system because it's new.
He added that it takes three years for boiler engineers to get fully trained, and if 20million boilers required changing, that would 'probably require a million engineers to do something like that'.
He said: 'These are not small jobs, they're not cheap. Practically it can't be done. Cost wise, people don't have that type of money and you don't have the engineers to do it.'
While gas produces greenhouse gases, electricity can be generated from renewable sources such as wind and solar.
Households are currently funding the shift to green energy through state levies on electricity, making it more expensive than gas.
Along with subsidies for insulation and the vulnerable, those charges add up to £131 on a typical annual electricity bill.
By contrast the levies on a typical gas bill are just £34.
Ministers are concerned that the difference will turn people off replacing their gas boilers with alternatives such as electric heat pumps.
The proposed rebalancing could see gas bills rise by up to £100 a year, according to the Daily Telegraph. The plans are set to go for consultation, and there is no timetable for implementing them yet.
Matt Copeland, head of policy at National Energy Action, told MailOnline today: 'While it is important to reduce electricity bills to make heat pumps more affordable for low-income households, this must not be done at the expense of millions of fuel poor gas users, who do not have the means to move to low carbon heating without financial support.'
And the campaign group Net Zero Watch warned that the policy would make heating 'even less affordable for millions of poor households'.
Its director Benny Peiser said: 'While energy analysts are warning of a renewed energy cost crisis later this year, the government seems oblivious of the growing economic pain to households and businesses.
'Mr Sunak and his ministers won't be able to blame the next energy crisis on Russia; instead, the government will rightly be held responsible for its total failure to reduce the rising cost of green levies.'
Good Morning Britain host Susanna Reid grilled Energy Secretary Grant Shapps about the new policy on the programme today, asking him: 'The trouble is, all people hear is, my bills are going to go up. Will they?'
Mr Shapps replied: 'No, and in fact that £100 shift would be from gas to giving the money off electricity instead, largely because the whole economy is moving towards electricity.'
Reid then interjected, saying: 'Hang on, hang on, so can we just establish that? Sorry, Mr Shapps. You're saying that gas bills will not go up in order to shift towards electricity?
And Mr Shapps replied: 'So one of the proposals, which we said we will consult on today, is there are a bunch of levy changes essentially.
And this is quite a minor point of the overall plan, by the way, but there's about £100 which at the moment is on people's electricity bills which could go on the gas bills instead.
'If it went on the electricity bills we think it would save people money overall and so that's why we're proposing making that shift. But it really makes no difference to most people. Most people are paying electricity and gas.'
Speaking on Sky News, Mr Shapps said Britons would need to switch from gas to cleaner energy 'over the next decade or two'.
He said: 'We all know that electricity can be a big way to decarbonise, but we also know these are big changes. So this is not a sort of rip-out-your-boiler moment.
'This is a transition over a period of time to get to homes which are heated in a different way and also insulated much better.'
He admitted 'we're in the low numbers still' for the uptake of heat pumps, with around 42,000 installed last year, adding: 'This programme, which is latent, it's at the beginning. There are technical issues that people are having to deal with in order to meet the switchover.'
Listing the steps he has taken in his own home, including turning down the boiler flow, Mr Shapps said: 'I'm gradually doing things. I'm not sort of some eco-warrior in this. I just want to try and save money on my energy bills like everybody else.'
Mr Shapps, who does not have a heat pump, said the Government's Powering Up Britain strategy had extended a scheme offering households £5,000 to replace their gas boilers.
But he added that energy company workers were going to survey his house this month 'to see about whether heat pumps can work'.
He told GB News: 'Sort of living the dream, as it were - or I'm hoping to. We'll see what happens when they come around to my house.'
Meanwhile, families could be offered hundreds of pounds off their energy bills if they agree to have a
wind farm nearby under plans set to be announced today.
Ministers will launch a consultation to ensure local communities can benefit from the development of onshore wind farms where there is local support.
Mr
Shapps confirmed that families who choose to support onshore wind could benefit directly through lower bills.
Ministers have previously looked at a scheme to give households up to £350 a year off their bills in return for supporting the construction of local wind farms.
When Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, he scrapped moves to relax the planning laws that have led to a virtual moratorium on wind farms since 2015.
But he faced a mounting backbench rebellion after an amendment was tabled to allow onshore wind where there is community consent.
Labour then joined forces with the rebels to support the amendment and No10 was forced to reconsider.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: 'We have always been clear that we support the development of onshore wind where there is local support.
'Today's package of measures ensures councils will have more flexibility to respond to the views of their residents, while we will shortly consult on further measures so that communities that choose to support onshore wind in their area can benefit directly from doing so, including through lower bills.'
Former prime minister David Cameron introduced an effective ban on onshore wind farms in 2015.
Developers were forced to address all local concerns about a potential wind farm and just one person could hold up an entire project.
Calls to end the ban on new onshore wind farms have grown amid efforts to secure the UK's energy independence after Russia's invasion of Ukraine squeezed supplies.
AIR SOURCE HEAT PUMPS (£5,000-£12,000)
Air source heat pumps absorb heat from the outside air at low temperature into a fluid to heat your house and hot water. They can still extract heat when it is as cold as -15C (5F), with the fluid passing through a compressor which warms it up and transfers it into a heating circuit.
They extract renewable heat from the environment, meaning the heat output is greater than the electricity input – and they are therefore seen as energy efficient.
There are two types, which are air-to-water and air-to-air, and installing a system costs an average of £10,500 but can be more or less, depending on the size of your home and its insulation. A Government grant of £5,000 and no VAT now means the actual average is at £4,975.
GROUND SOURCE HEAT PUMPS (£11,000 - £20,000)
Ground source heat pumps use pipes buried in the garden to extract heat from the ground, which can then heat radiators, warm air heating systems and hot water.
They circulate a mixture of water and antifreeze around a ground loop pipe. Heat from the ground is absorbed into the fluid and then passes through a heat exchanger.
Installation costs between £11,000 to £20,000 depending on the length of the loop, and running costs will depend on the size of the home and its insulation.
The Government is offering a £6,000 grant and no VAT on installations. The systems normally come with a two or three year warranty - and work for at least 20 years, with a professional check every three to five years.
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