Hydrogen Heating

Earl Russell Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord will find out whether now is the right time to be pushing ahead with it when we announce the decision. He should not necessarily believe everything that he reads in the newspapers.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, the Second National Infrastructure Assessment argues:

“Gas boilers, which currently heat around 88 per cent of English buildings, need to be phased out and replaced by heat pumps. Around eight million additional buildings will need to switch to low carbon heating by 2035, and all buildings by 2050”.


Can the Minister tell us how the Government plan to implement these recommendations and make carbon-neutral home heating available in time to meet our net-zero commitments?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

There is a long and detailed answer to that, but there are a number of different elements to it. We will be consulting very shortly on the future homes standards, which will take advantage of new technology in terms of setting standards for all new developments. Clearly, there is a big challenge with existing, particularly residential, properties. I have said that heat pumps and heat networks will play the majority role in decarbonisation efforts. There could also be a role for renewable heating fuels, where there are some exciting developments.