Chris Unsworth
Head, ADE: Heat Networks
The argument for keeping gas boilers has collapsed. New analysis proves low-carbon heat networks could soon be cost-competitive.
For years, we assumed clean heat meant higher costs; that assumption is now dead. Our Clean Heat 2040 report shows that heat networks can be cost-competitive with running a gas boiler — this could change everything.
Gas boilers have met their match
Every time you pay a gas bill, you’re sending money to volatile foreign markets, and we have no control over those prices. Qatar sneezes, and British households catch the flu.
The Government then piles taxes onto your electricity bill to fund green schemes. If you try to switch to a clean option, you get penalised with higher running costs. We’re taxing the solution and subsidising the problem.
British industry throws away enough heat to warm every home in the country; we vent it into thin air. Data centres glow with heat while nearby estates burn expensive gas; we’re quite literally burning cash. Heat networks fix this — they’re simple pipes that capture wasted heat from rivers, old mines or factories and pump it directly to your home. This severs the link between your heating bill and volatile global gas markets.
Heat networks could unlock over £100bn of investment and create 100,000 jobs, turning an unavoidable household cost into an engine for economic growth
Untapped potential of heat networks
Heat networks could unlock over £100bn of investment and create 100,000 jobs, turning an unavoidable household cost into an engine for economic growth. We stop being held hostage by foreign gas prices and start using what we already have.
The Government needs to act now. First, treat heat networks like the critical infrastructure they are. Give them the same long-term backing we give to technologies like offshore wind. Second, fix the electricity tax. It makes no sense to pile green levies onto electricity, actively penalising people who try to switch. Rebalance it onto gas to send a real signal. Third, give local authorities the tools to zone areas for heat networks. Let them connect places with free heat to the people who need it.
The heat is there, and the technology works. The only question is whether we have the guts to build it.
