Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 September 2022
538. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will provide an update on legislation being prepared to give effect to the commitment in the climate action plan to ban the installation of fossil fuel boilers in new homes by 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42429/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraAction 194c of Climate Action Plan (CAP) 2021 commits to “Effectively ban the installation of fossil fuel boilers in new homes” by Q4 2023 led by my Department with the support of SEAI.
It is intended that the elimination of fossil fuels in new dwellings will be implemented through Part L of the Building Regulations for Conservation of Fuel and Energy in Dwellings.
Part L of the Building Regulations is performance based and technology neutral. Fossil fuel boilers are phased out through the Building Regulations by advancing regulatory performance requirements so that it is no longer practical to install fossil fuel boilers as the primary heating system in new dwellings.
As part of a roadmap in place since 2007 to improve the performance requirements of building regulations, Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) Regulations were introduced for new dwellings commencing construction from 1 November 2019. This programme of improvement has effectively banned solid fossil fuel and oil boilers from being installed as the primary heating source in new dwellings.
CSO analysis of Building Energy Ratings show that the main heating system for new dwellings since 2020 is now electricity for renewable energy heat pumps. Based on the CSO analysis 82% of all new dwellings now use renewable energy heat pumps as the primary heating system.
The CSO analysis also shows that oil fired boilers are no longer installed in new dwellings since 2020 and that solid fuel is no longer installed as the main heating system in new dwellings since 2014.
Gas boilers are installed in 17% of new dwellings since 2020, down from 47% in the period 2015 to 2019.
Based on the recent accelerated decline of the installation of gas boilers as a result of the introduction of NZEB requirements in 2019, it is expected that further planned updates to the National Calculation methodology for the performance requirements of Part L of the Building Regulations including an update to reflect the decarbonisation of electricity should make it less feasible to install fossil fuel boilers by the end of 2023, to the extent that all fossil fuel boilers will be effectively banned as the primary heating system for all new dwellings.
