{"id":8526,"date":"2024-02-10T09:20:26","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T09:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8526"},"modified":"2024-02-10T09:20:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-10T09:20:26","slug":"chmm-backtrack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2024\/02\/10\/chmm-backtrack\/","title":{"rendered":"CHMM Backtrack"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote back in December<\/a> about how the price of new gas boilers was rising because manufacturers were passing on the fines imposed on them by government. \u00a0From HMG's perspective, of course, these are not fines, but are branded as 'incentives' and were designed to persuade manufacturers to make more heat pumps. \u00a0No more, there\u2019s been a change of heart at the Dept of Heat Pumps.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s \u201cclean heat strategy\" had a target to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028 and was to start in April. \u00a0In this, manufacturers would need to replace 4% of boiler sales with heat pumps or face an incentive payment \/ fine of \u00a33,000 for every installation they missed. \u00a0The same sort of incentive is in place for car manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Well before April, it became clear, however, that manufacturers were already increasing boiler prices (by \u00a3120 a year) to offset the fines.<\/span><\/p>\n

A government climbdown? \u00a0A U-Turn? \u00a0A humiliation? \u00a0Or merely an admission of a complete failure to think through the likely consequences of an action?<\/p>\n

The Times<\/a> has more detail including a government comment that tries to make the best of a bad job whilst shifting the blame:<\/p>\n

\u201cBoiler manufacturers have saddled families with indefensible price hikes \u2014 that is not right. We\u2019re looking again at the policy, and expect manufacturers to do the right thing and remove their price hikes immediately.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Net zero is certainly a remarkable thing. \u00a0I can remember the time when manufacturers produced goods for sale based solely on the idea that people might like to buy them to address a need, or perhaps a whim. \u00a0Now, we have what are essentially Soviet-style 5-year plans based on what government wants.<\/p>\n

And they wonder why people and companies revolt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote back in December about how the price of new gas boilers was rising because manufacturers were passing on the fines imposed on them by government. \u00a0From HMG's perspective, of course, these are not fines, but are branded as...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}