Cleaner-heating grants wound down

[muppet]

Cleaner-heating grants wound down

ELOISE GIBSON Last updated 05:00 12/09/2012

Government subsidies for heat pumps have been quietly scrapped after a study found no clear economic benefits.

Grants of $500 towards heat pumps and other types of efficient heating were part of the Warm Up New Zealand scheme, which will continue to give subsidies for floor and ceiling insulation for another year or more.
But "clean heating" will no longer be part of the scheme, except for people replacing dirty heating, such as open fires, in the most polluted suburbs.
While there has been no formal public announcement, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority has already stopped giving grants to heating installers, meaning homeowners in larger centres will struggle to get them unless they find a company with allocation left.
The last of the grants was expected to be gone by the end of the month, EECA chief executive Mike Underhill said.
Comments on internet message boards suggest people have been struggling to access the $500 clean heating grants in Wellington since at least the middle of the year, and that Auckland is also running low.
More at
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...nts-wound-down

[Cassandra]

I'd rather put heat pumps in properties over theose horrid un-flued bottled gas heaters that emit nitrous gases and moisture- but interestingly, we found much cheaper quotes with heat pump installers not registered under the Govt Grant scheme

[twoandcounting]

Agree. The proportion of the subsidy that made it through to the customer was a lot less than $500 in most cases, as the installers registered with the government scheme increased their prices, and those not registered, knew they had to be competitive. I suspect this is what the results of the study showed.

[donnyboy]

I personally know that if you have a house built before 2000 and that the house is insulated up to the EECA standard in the ceiling and underfloor & you have an old chimney or wood burner that could be decommissioned, you can still get funding for a heat pump. If the owner of the house has a community services card, the amount could be $2000!