Any new boiler installed in Britain’s homes should be hydrogen-ready from 2025, a coalition of gas boiler manufacturers and grid operators has told the Prime Minister.
In an open letter to Boris Johnson, gas boiler manufacturers Baxi Heating and Worcester Bosch have joined voices with all five of Britain’s gas grid operators to call for hydrogen-ready boilers to be mandated from four years’ time, in-line with the ambition the Prime Minister set out in his recent Ten Point Plan.
David Smith, Chief Executive, Energy Networks Association, commented: “We all need to reduce carbon emissions from our homes, to play our part in addressing climate change.
“People must be able to choose the technology that’s right for them and the properties they live in, otherwise all the other progress we’ve made risks being undone.
“We need hydrogen-ready boilers, heat-pumps and any other technology that can help deliver that.”
Britain’s household carbon emissions need to drop by 95% between now and 2050, and the 2020 Climate Assembly UK found that 94% of assembly members ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ that people in different parts of the country should be offered different solutions to zero carbon heating.
The companies argue the move is necessary to ensure that Britain’s homes have a choice of different types of low carbon heating appliances in the future, such as hydrogen-ready boilers, heat pumps or innovative hybrid technologies bringing the two technologies together.
That choice is necessary to maintain public support for reducing emissions and to ensure different types of technologies can be installed in different types of homes, they argue.
Requiring new household boilers to be hydrogen-ready will ‘send a clear signal to boiler manufacturers to build on their existing work in this area, to invest in developing the widest possible range of hydrogen-ready products for consumers to choose from’, the group says.
Karen Boswell OBE, Managing Director UK & Ireland of Baxi Heating UK, added: “Hydrogen has an important role to play in the net zero challenge and can offer consumers a relatively low disruption option for decarbonising heat.
“A mandate for hydrogen ready boilers represents an effective pragmatic step which would help to prepare households, simplifying a future changeover.”
The open letter can be downloaded from Energy Networks Association’s website.
