Low-carbon Heat Networks

Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Curran]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to support the rollout of low carbon heat networks.

[Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Curran, and with her permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Whitehead) (Lab)]

The warm homes plan sets a new, ambitious target for heat network growth to meet 7% of heat demand by 2035 and an even greater amount by 2050. This ensures that households and businesses in dense areas can benefit from the cheapest clean heat for them, and that we are maximising the efficiency of our energy system. Alongside our other capital schemes, this Government will invest £1 billion in low-carbon heat networks over this Parliament, including through the green heat network fund and the heat network efficiency scheme. Heat network zoning will fundamentally transform the development of new heat networks in England; it will provide the tools to ensure that they are built in the right places, and give investors and developers the certainty they need to bring forward more ambitious schemes.

[Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister and welcome the warm homes plan, but we need ambition. Only infrastructure heats homes. Clean, low-carbon heat networks can match gas boiler costs. Instead of every house having its own gas boiler, you have one central source of heat—a big heat pump, a river, a disused coal mine or even a data centre—and you pipe that heat through insulated underground pipes to thousands of homes. I ask my noble friend: when do the Government intend to treat heat networks as essential national infrastructure?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right about the importance, cheapness and flexibility of heat networks for the future. Indeed, the Government are taking that flexibility—that essential nature—of heat networks very seriously in their ambitions for them to provide something like 20% of total heat by 2050. Among other things, the Government are doing that through the green heat network fund, to bring forward investment, and to make sure, through the heat network efficiency scheme, that existing heat networks are brought up to scratch with the newer ones that are coming on stream.