Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 January 2024
90. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications about heat pumps, what solutions are available for those whose homes are not suitable or who cannot afford heat pump installation; if biofuel boilers in the residential sector are being considered as part of the solution; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3488/24]
View answerI ask the Minister to set out what solutions are available for homes that are not suitable for heat pumps or for householders who cannot afford heat pump installation; if biofuel boilers in the residential sector are being considered as part of the solution; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
As part of an enhanced package of SEAI retrofit supports, the heat pump grant has increased significantly, with grant support for an air-to-water heat pump of up to €6,500. For homeowners undertaking a deep retrofit under the national home energy upgrade scheme or the community energy grant scheme, additional grant support is available towards required heating system upgrades, as well as a bonus payment of €2,000 to eligible homeowners. This equates to a significant total potential grant of up to €10,500.
The SEAI is also working on a residential heat pump and heat loss indicator research study with a scope involving up to 1,000 homes to test the performance of heat pumps across homes with a higher level of heat loss than is currently permitted by the SEAI in order to qualify for grant support. The pilot is open to homeowners wishing to participate and the SEAI has indicated that results from participating homes are expected next year. Pending the findings of the study, this could allow heat pumps to be installed in many more homes that currently are not deemed eligible for grant support.
The national heat study undertaken by the SEAI at the request of my Department contains the detailed analysis that is informing the development of options, policies and measures to decarbonise the heating and cooling sectors by 2050. The study considered a number of potential decarbonisation options for a wide range of dwelling and business types. This included the use of liquid biofuels, solid biomass, biogases and other technologies such as heat pumps and district heating networks.
The recommendation of the heat study is that heat pumps are the optimal decarbonisation path for domestic heating systems, with district heating also being a competitive option that can be widely deployed. Up to 0.7 TWh of heating will also be provided by biomethane. It should be noted that there is a limited supply of bio-based liquid fuels, which would account for only a small fraction of our current fossil fuel use. Any incentive to encourage the use of these scarce heating resources is likely to displace the carbon savings in other sectors. Therefore, no steps are being taken at this time to promote the use of biofuel boilers in the heat sector.
The Minister's response reflects the current position. With regard to the targets for heat pump installations - 45,000 existing and 170,000 new dwellings by 2025, and up to 400,000 existing and 280,000 new dwellings by 2030 - it has to be said that the Government is missing a lot of targets. It is missing this target by an absolute mile. Just 9,469 heat pumps have been installed since 2020. This is nowhere near what is needed. The difficulty is with the cost but also with regard to whether houses are appropriate for it. What solution does the Minister have for those people who have been burdened with carbon tax, who are maybe burning solid fuels or oil, and who want to move to a more sustainable, climate-friendly solution? The only show in town according to this Government is the heat pump, and it is simply not an option for very many people. Even with the heat loss indicator study, it still will not be an option for many of them. It is a real problem.
In terms of meeting targets under our retrofitting programme and improving the heating and insulation of homes-----
I asked about heat pumps.
Yes, but the wider picture is that we massively exceeded our target last year, with 47,000 houses done and another 37,000 planned.
What about heat pumps?
Heat pumps have been fitted in more than 3,700 homes, which was a 66% increase on the previous year. Yes, we need to go further and faster, and we will do that. In particular, we need to improve a lot of the online and other bureaucratic systems around heat pump supports, which are not as flexible and as fast as I would like to see, in order to deliver the scale and number of heat pump installations we need. We will accelerate that.
The implication of the Deputy's question is that in hard-to-reach houses, the solution should be liquid biofuel boilers. I do not agree with that because I do not believe it would be sustainable. It would deliver households down into a cul-de-sac where those fuels would not be seen as the correct solution. Given the limited quantity of the fuels, they are best targeted at the transport rather than the heat sector. We will have to look at a whole range of other solutions, including heat pumps, district heating and, in some instances, wood-fired heating in isolated houses in the countryside. However, the solution will not be biofuel boilers because we have to consider biodiversity as well as climate in our sustainability criteria. The sustainability issue arising from everyone turning to biofuel is a severely critical issue that we cannot ignore.
I am not for a second suggesting we should ignore it but we need to provide a pathway for those hard-to-reach households. We cannot ignore them. I would look at the number of heat pumps that have been installed and consider how many are in the poorest, coldest homes. How many are in homes where people are burning turf and sticks? I would say it is a tiny fraction because those houses are not suitable or the homeowners cannot afford the installation. We need to provide a solution for them. I know there are questions in terms of sustainability. Let us look at all of that but we need to provide a solution for those households. Otherwise, we are at real risk of leaving them behind and driving a wedge between people. When the Minister comes in here and talks about the success of retrofitting and heat pump installation, those families see that it is being done in other people's homes. There are, of course, questions about land use, sustainability and the supply chain. However, others have raised the weaknesses in the design of the schemes and the fact people are being left behind. It behoves the Government to find solutions. If the Minister is saying hydrotreated vegetable oil, HVO, is not the solution, he needs to show us the evidence for that and provide an alternative.
There is mounting international evidence and concern about the limited availability of sustainable HVO. I will happily share that with the Deputy. It is an international issue of real concern and we cannot ignore it. There is a whole variety of solutions. The first has to be, as we are doing now, improving the insulation capabilities of something like 50,000 houses a year, which will make them available and accessible for heat pump installation. We need to change the standards to allow for a wider deployment subject to the study I instanced in my first response. We need to look at a whole range of other solutions, including district heating. Going back to the original district heating study, we think we could cover something like half the homes in the country if we really went for district heating at scale. Other options including biomethane can be developed as a heat energy source that is sustainable. We can manage the land use implications of it.
There is a variety of solutions, as I have outlined. We absolutely must target the houses that are the least efficient and have the highest smoky fuel content. That is why we put half the carbon tax money we give to heating into the warmer homes scheme, social housing and other targeted solutions. The households involved often tend to be the poorer homes and that is why we particularly use the carbon tax to address that sector.
