Unlocking the economics of clean heat neighbourhoods Understanding the economic barriers to building shared heating infrastructure

We have a new Nesta report out today, on how we can fund big clean heat infrastructure projects.

We're going to need a lot of heat networks and communal systems, especially in cities - but they are really quite hard to finance. How could we change that?

We have three key recommendations...

Better we dust off the old TWF reports? (Although almost everyone who wrote them seems to be professor or Director General now so actually some chance of traction?)

Banner for The energy edit, a Nesta newsletter by me

Oh! I'm starting a Nesta newsletter called The Energy Edit.

Here's the first edition, looking at the big offshore wind auction and the Warm Homes Plan and asking what they mean for energy bills.
In short: more offshore wind is no longer an easy fix to reduce bills

www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew...

Free cold plunge included

The pre-Budget messaging on climate policy has been so confusing.

Extra money for EV subsidies, but a pay-per-mile charge that doesn’t hit fossil fuel cars? Limiting cycle-to-work schemes?
Maybe slash fuel poverty funding, maybe cut heat pump subsidies?

It has made the industry very nervous.

🤦‍♂️

Hundreds of thousands to lose heat pump subsidies in Reeves’s budget plan Exclusive: Supporters say grants largely going to middle-class households, but experts warn move will slow transition from gas boilers

I think part of this story (on eligibility for heat pump grants) is likely to be nonsense - I'll explain in a thread below.

But it is clear that the Treasury wants to abolish the ECO levy, which funds upgrades for fuel poor homes. This would be a serious mistake

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The value of public R&D

Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term
www.gov.uk/government/p...

Slight problem with these headlines in that the report literally recommends keeping the clean power target. institute.global/insights/cli...

Rachel Reeves plans 'targeted action' on bills in Budget The chancellor is planning moves to help households with the cost of living in the Budget.

Now then!

“…the government could intervene to bring down energy bills, for example, by cutting the current 5% rate of VAT charged on energy.
Another option is to reduce some of the regulatory levies currently added to bills.”

Seven tests for the government’s Warm Homes plan Accelerating the switch from gas to electricity, make electricity cheaper, and balancing electrification with insulation are key policies that could reduce bills and carbon emissions for households

The long-awaited Warm Homes plan is expected to launch in October, and it will be one of the government’s most important and challenging policy plans.

A new blog by Nesta's @acjsissons.bsky.social outlines the 7 tests the plan must meet to tackle fuel poverty, energy bills and decarbonisation:

I know this is a futile exercise, but let’s count the mistakes in that one Payne paragraph…

1. “Renewables are no longer the cheapest form of energy” - don’t think so. Offshore wind has got more expensive recently, but onshore and solar remain cheap. And gas probably still costs more than offshore

OK, some more considered thoughts on the Industrial Strategy published on Monday and my comment on it.

The first, inescapable point to make about this thing is that it is *huge*. Not "Bidenomics" huge, which translated to £ would have meant £100bns. But in detail 1/

www.gov.uk/government/p...