Community Energy Literature Review

Introduction During a recent online forum about the UK’s Warm Homes Plan, a question was asked about the role of air-to-air heat pumps in low-carbon heating policy. The UK plan will be briefly outlined below, followed by a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of air-to-air heat pumps compared to air-to-water heat pumps, based on an EIRO publication. The Warm Homes Plan 2026 The plan is discussed in relation to the housing sector in an article from the Carbon Literacy Project (CLP, 2026). “Homes and buildings account for roughly one-fifth of UK emissions” and £15 billion is to be invested with the aim of upgrading five million homes by 2030. The existing Boiler Upgrade Scheme will continue to offer grants of up to £7,500 per property for installation of heat pumps and a “£2,500 grant per property will also be available for air to air (as opposed to air to water) heat pumps which can also provide cooling.” The UK Warm Homes Plan (DESNZ, 2026) notes the increase in sales...

In May 2025 Riviera Maritime published an article about the anticipated launch of a UK energy auction in the coming August (Foxwell, 2025). While this brief account mentions many of the key features of the auction, it assumes a certain familiarity with the process and its background on the part of its readers, who are likely to be members of the maritime, offshore and energy business communities. Since the subject is of wider interest, some of the issues affecting the auction will be discussed below to provide a more complete picture of the auction and its context. Policy and the energy auctions A recent policy development affecting the auction is the UK’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. This set out targets for clean energy which include producing at least 95% of Great Britain’s generation from clean sources. This would reduce “the carbon intensity of our generation from 171gCO2e/kWh in 2023 to well below 50gCO2e/kWh in 2030.” Achieving the target would require “rapid deployment of ...