Earth Notes: General Bibliography (UKHoC2025retrofitting)

• [UKHoC2025retrofitting] UK HoC Energy Security and Net Zero Committee Retrofitting homes for net zero (accessed 2025-11-10), UK House of Commons, 2025-05-09, report/number HC 453, also at (report) (BibTeX).
  abstract

  Four in five homes that will be occupied in 2050 have already been built and most will need retrofitting with low carbon heating systems and energy efficiency improvements for the UK to achieve net zero emissions. The Climate Change Committee projects that all home heating will come from low carbon sources by 2050, with most coming from electric heating systems such as heat pumps or low carbon heat networks. Today, however, fewer than 3% of homes are connected to a heat network and fewer than 1% have a heat pump installed. The UK housing stock is also among the least energy efficient in Europe, which has trapped many households in fuel poverty. Most witnesses told us that government schemes to support home retrofit have lacked the long-term funding commitments needed to provide consumers, installers and the supply chain with confidence. We also heard that consumers lack access to impartial advice and are poorly informed by Energy Performance Certificates. We call on the Government to provide far longer-term certainty for its retrofit support schemes, launch a national warm homes advice service and introduce a carbon metric to certify the energy performance of homes. Electricity is around four times more expensive than gas in the UK, which deters many consumers from switching to low carbon heating systems. Rebalancing policy costs and reducing the cost of electricity relative to gas is the key recommendation that we make in this Report. We urge the Government to introduce measures that encourage the installation of new low carbon heating systems and that make the installation of new fossil fuel heating systems less attractive in homes. We also call on the Government to take a prompt decision on hydrogen heating to provide much needed certainty. We conclude that measures must be focused on supporting and encouraging those least likely to be able to afford a transition, low income households. Barriers to making the required changes to facilitate home retrofit include a lack of skilled workers and a deficit of consumer confidence caused by an unnecessarily complicated landscape for consumer protections and workforce accreditation. We recommend that the Government increases incentives for workers to upskill on low carbon retrofit, including via the Growth and Skills Levy mechanisms, and introduces a national workforce accreditation scheme as a prerequisite for carrying out any retrofit work to ensure that consumers know who they can trust.
  note

  [Quote: "Hydrogen boilers remain at a prototype stage. Once fully developed, the Eco Experts estimate that hydrogen boilers could cost a similar amount upfront to a natural gas boiler, between £570 and £2,700. While an air source heat pump can cost between £7,000 and £10,000 for a two- or three- bedroom house, the BUS offers grants of up to £7,500 against these costs, making them roughly cost comparable, and they are expected to become cheaper as their efficiency improves."]