Blog Post

Gas Boiler Ban likely to be pushed back until 2040 due to anger over costs

Richard Simmonds • July 28, 2021

According to the media, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is likely to delay the ban on new gas boilers from the initially announced target date of 2035 to 2040 due to growing anger over the costs involved.

Was it ever realistic?

The ban on new gas boilers announced last year sparked an outcry from many in the energy industry and consumer groups who claimed that such a move would prove to be exorbitantly expensive and that the technology the government was relying on to replace them wasn’t even ready yet.

Now it seems that the Prime Minister is finally starting to realise that his ambitious green policies are likely to prove too costly if they are enacted too quickly.

The UK economy has been hammered by the government’s Covid-19 strategy and finances are under strain. Further tax hikes on the public to fund the green agenda will likely go down as well as a lead balloon.

With some economists already forecasting that the cost of hitting NetZero will cost the country over a trillion pounds, not to mention the massive costs to every single citizen and the disruption that will be caused to rip out and replace vast areas of the nation’s infrastructure with greener alternatives, was the 2050 deadline ever realistic?

With the COP26 conference due to take place in Glasgow later this year, such a delay will likely garner criticism from environmentalists.

As part of the UK's international climate commitments under the Paris Agreement, which was agreed at a UN summit in 2015, Britain has committed to cut greenhouse gases by 68% by 2030.

However, a pushback on a boiler ban could threaten the UK’s chances of hitting this target.

Also read: Installation of new gas boilers should be banned from 2025 to hit climate change targets says CBI

Heat pumps and Hydrogen

The government is relying on all gas boilers eventually being replaced with ground source and air source heat pumps. However, this technology is hugely expensive and with millions of households struggling to pay their energy bills already, it's highly doubtful they’d be willing or able to pay out to get their boiler replaced.

Currently, a heat pump would cost a household a massive £14,000 and Hydrogen boilers (which haven’t even entered the market yet) cost £11,000. With these costs combined with the financial pressures, many households are already facing support for the ban taking place in 2025 has dropped.

Combined with the staggering costs of the Covid Pandemic these measures are predicted to cost households across the nation £400 billion.

Also read: Green Energy Suppliers object the prospect of adding a surcharge to household energy bills

Smart meters made redundant?

If all gas boilers are replaced by hydrogen or heat pumps, then smart meters will be made redundant.

This was confirmed by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng who said that new smart meter technology was being developed.

“We are developing prototype smart meters that can be installed to be adapted to hydrogen,” he told MPs on the science and technology committee.

What this means for the millions of SMETS 1 and SMETS 2 smart meters that have been installed during the smart meter rollout remains to be seen. If all those meters will need to be fully replaced, then the costs would be very high.

Also read: Total number of DCC connected Smart Meters surpassed 12.5 million in June

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