Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
Set out actions to increase heat pump installer numbers beyond 2025 to meet targets.
Conclusion
DESNZ has made good progress in increasing the number of trained heat pump installers, but it faces a huge challenge to make sure there are enough installers to achieve its target to install 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028. DESNZ reports that it is on track towards meeting its target to have 12,000 trained heat pump installers by 2025, with 7,000 installers trained so far. The Heat Pump Association estimates, however, that there will need to be 33,700 trained heat pump installers by 2028 in order to meet DESNZ’s overall installations target. DESNZ recognises that there is more to be done to achieve this and that it needs to keep investing in training heat pump installers after 2025, but decisions for future training grants will be for the next spending review. A key challenge will be to retrain around 110,000 existing gas heating engineers to be able to install heat pumps. Although DESNZ considers this could be done quickly, this is nonetheless a large number of people who will need to be retrained given the number of installers it has trained so far. Recommendation 3: DESNZ should, as part of its Treasury Minute response, set out what actions it will take to increase the number of heat pump installers after
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and is taking actions to increase installers, including the Heat Training Grant (until April 2025), a new Low Carbon Heating Technician apprenticeship (Autumn 2023), and supporting local supply chains with over £600,000 in pilots. It has also established the Office for Clean Energy Jobs.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. continue to increase rapidly beyond 2025 and will work closely with industry to ensure that sufficient installers are available to install heat pumps. The Heat Training Grant is the main form of government support currently available to upskill the existing heating engineer workforce and will provide around 10,000 opportunities for heat pump and heat network professionals. While this scheme is funded until April 2025, decisions on future training support will form part of Spending Review 2025 (SR25). In addition, the apprenticeship framework for heating and plumbing was recently updated to ensure it offers the right skills to deliver Net Zero and launched a new Low Carbon Heating Technician apprenticeship in Autumn 2023. This will help bring new entrants into the sector and build a sustainable skills pipeline. The government will continue to work with industry to promote awareness and uptake of this apprenticeship and explore the most effective ways to grow and diversify the installer workforce. The Regional Skills Pilots is a £3.5 million investment in the retrofit skills supply chain across the English regions. The pilots support the five local net zero hubs to work with local delivery partners to identify and test solutions to regional challenges. As part of the pilots, over £600,000 will directly support local heat pump supply chains. Other actions include supporting further education colleges to invest in new low carbon skills training facilities and upskill teaching staff to build capacity and capability in the system. Further support for skills pilots will be subject to decisions taken at SR25. The department has set up the Office for Clean Energy Jobs, which will support tackling workforce and skills challenges in core energy and net zero sectors, critical to meeting our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower. The Office will work with the Department for Education and support the newly established Skills England to ensure we have the skills we need to deliver the Mission, forming a view across the department to feed into Skills England’s wider assessment of the UK economy’s structural skills needs, and supporting with targeted delivery of specific policy solutions in the energy sector.