UK government delays CHMM scheme
14th March 2024
UK: The UK government is proposing a year’s delay on the introduction of the Clean Heat Market Mechanism, one of its key tools to support the rollout of heat pumps.
The government now plans to adjust the launch of the CHMM scheme from 1 April of this year to 1 April 2025 in order to “provide industry with further time to prepare their businesses, and for more consumers to take up heat pumps”.
Target levels for 2025/2026 (set at 6% of relevant boiler sales), and all other aspects of the scheme’s design and implementation, would remain as set out in the government’s November 2023 consultation response. Targets for further years will be subject to consultation.
“We intend to continue industry-government engagement to consider the joint actions needed to support this market growth, increasing investment and growing consumer confidence in heat pumps,” the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said.
Reacting to the announcement, the Heat Pump Association’s CEO Charlotte Lee said: “Whilst this does not provide the certainty industry desperately needs; it does offer an opportunity for the government to deliver functioning processes in a transparent manner to enable the mechanism to work.
“This delay also provides time for the Government to lay the required statutory Instruments to introduce the policy,” she added.
She called on the government to use the time to take “meaningful action” to rebalance the price of electricity relative to gas.
