Swaffham Prior village heat pump scheme that has cost £250,000 per house

Swaffham Prior village heat pump scheme that has cost £250,000 per house
Swaffham Prior village heat pump scheme that has cost £250,000 per house

Can there be any surer way for the Government to waste our money than on green energy schemes?

A new report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is scathing about the Green Homes Grant Scheme, which was supposed to transform 600,000 homes with insulation and greener heating systems, but was abandoned earlier this year after just six months in operation.

Only 47,500 homes received a grant, and it ended up costing taxpayers more than £1,000 per property in administration fees.

The PAC said the scheme didn’t take into account a shortage of tradespeople able to carry out the work it was supposed to fund.

Why does it always end up this way? David Cameron’s Green Deal was much the same.

Introduced in 2013 to slash carbon emissions by offering loans to insulate homes, the National Audit Office found that it had saved ‘negligible amounts of CO2’ by the time it was closed two years later.

Swaffham Prior is the latest village to trial a new green scheme using a communal heat pump

Swaffham Prior is the latest village to trial a new green scheme using a communal heat pump

Today I can reveal a green energy project that looks like being an even bigger turkey. 

Near where I live in Cambridgeshire, the county council has thrown £12 million — including a £3.2 million Government grant — at a community heating system powered by a ground-source heat pump (which transfers heat to/from the ground).

It was supposed to be a test bed of how all properties could be heated in future. By the end of December, however, only 47 homes had signed up.

So unless there is a last-minute rush of interest, it will end up costing more than £250,000 per house.

That is as much as some homes in the village of Swaffham Prior are worth.

Yet ministers are intent on forcing us all on to similar schemes. You may have heard that the Government proposes to outlaw the installation of new gas boilers from 2035.

Pictured: How the communal heat pump project at Swaffham Prior will work

Pictured: How the communal heat pump project at Swaffham Prior will work

Rather less well-known is that the end will come sooner for oil-fired boilers and LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) boilers — used by four million homes that lie beyond the gas mains.

Under the Heat and Buildings Strategy, new installations of these boilers will be banned from 2026, as part of a dash to conform with the Government’s legally binding target of eliminating net carbon emissions by 2050.

So, if my oil boiler fails in five years, I won’t be allowed to replace it with another one.

I’ll either have to

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