A target of installing 600,000 new heat pumps every year by 2028 will be hit by the Government, the energy efficiency minister insisted this morning. 

Lord Callanan said the Government is “on target” despite official figures showing annual installations are currently far below that level. Some 72,000 heat pumps were installed in 2022, leaving a mountain to climb to hit the 600,000 target. 

Told that it appeared the 2028 target will be missed, Lord Callanan told Times Radio: “No, we are on target to meet that. 

“As I said, we have a number of different training schemes, we have spent £15million on a new heat training grant recently which has trained thousands of new installers and more and more existing boiler engineers are transferring onto installing heat pumps.”

The Government is pushing for people to shift from gas boilers to heat pumps as part of its net zero emissions drive but critics have expressed concerns over the cost of the technology. 

Ministers today announced that a Government grant scheme to support the installation of heat pumps is set to benefit from another £1.5 billion in funding.

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