HEAT PUMP SCHEME A 'PLAGUE ON UK' AS RISHI SUNAK WARNED OVER MISSING KEY TARGET
The Government's plan to have thousands of Britons switch to heat pumps has been described as a "plague" in a furious rant by an author who wrote a book blasting the UK's green strategy. Ross Clark, author of 'Not Zero: How an Irrational Target Will Impoverish You, Help China (and Won't Even Save the Planet)', pointed out the low intake of the tech and claimed the Government's plan will fail to support the manufacturers of the product.
The Government is encouraging households to take on heat pumps instead of using natural gas boilers as part of its drive for net zero.
This is in response to the terrifying issue of climate change.
However, Mr Clark argued that the heat pump scheme was ill-thought-out and would not work for Britons.
Describing the scheme as "disastrous", the journalist and author wrote for the Telegraph that ministers seemed "blithely unaware of the financial pain they are about to inflict on millions of households - and manufacturing industry, too."
Rishi Sunak has set a target of 600,000 homes a year to switch to heat pumps by 2028 - with half of the heat pumps involved to be manufactured in Britain.
But the Government has also introduced stringent quotas for those manufacturers to meet, with the intention of fining companies that fail to do so to the tune of £5,000.
Vaillant UK, a leading boiler manufacturer, warned it would review its UK investment plans if the plans went forward, having invested £4million in a new heat pump production line at its Derbyshire factory.
The struggle for the factories, they say, comes from a slow rate of uptake of heat pumps, even though the Government is offering payouts to households to help cover the cost of installing them.
Mr Clark wrote: "Somehow, manufacturers and installers are going to have to increase installations tenfold if the target is to be met - and they are going to have to do so without the subsidies.
READ MORE: Heat pumps slammed as alternative could be 'cheaper and simpler' for consumers [REVEAL]
"There is, surely, no way that the public purse is going to stretch to a £5,000 handout for all of Britain's 27 million households - that would cost over £100billion.
"The current subsidy scheme involves enough money only for 30,000 households to take advantage."
The author said there would need to be a significant technological breakthrough that brought the price of heat pumps down before they could be a viable option, adding: "The only 'green jobs' this disastrous project will create are overpaid officials in quangos who are paid to come up with ever dafter ideas of how to punish and manipulate the public into achieving net zero."
In a recent report, the CMA warned that their potential was at risk of being undermined by a lack of clear information about how they are used.
The report stated: "Where claims are not representative of the real-world effects consumers are likely to experience, they can stop people making informed decisions and risk misleading them."
Sarah Williams, Director of Regulation, Asset Strategy at Wales & West Utilities, told Express.co.uk that hydrogen could present an effective alternative that Brits should be aware of, as it both has no emissions and is able to use the same pipes that have already been installed across the country to transport natural gas.
But reaching 100 percent hydrogen in our current system remains several years off. Tests will not be completed until after 2025, and the likely running costs for consumers remain "a big question".
It is also unclear whether hydrogen will be as effective in fighting climate change, as it has to be extracted from other substances, and the best one to extract it from is methane - natural gas.
Therefore, to efficiently stop the process of extracting hydrogen from further polluting the atmosphere, further technological strides are needed.