IGEM response to DESNZ: Exploring the role of alternative clean heating solutions consultation

Feb 2026

IGEM response to DESNZ: Exploring the role of alternative clean heating solutions consultation

IGEM welcomes this consultation and the government’s ambition to ensure that every building can transition to low-carbon heat, including hard-to-decarbonise properties. As an organisation representing gas engineering expertise across the UK and the rest of the world, we support a whole-systems approach that uses the strengths of multiple energy vectors and avoids prematurely narrowing the range of viable solutions.

Drawing on our long history of developing technical standards, supporting innovation and providing impartial engineering insight, IGEM plays a central role in ensuring that technologies such as biomethane, hydrogen and hybrid heating systems can be deployed safely, efficiently and at scale. Through our work with industry, government and regulators, we help to shape the frameworks that enable green gases to be integrated into the energy system, and we champion practical pathways (such as hybrid heating) that deliver immediate emissions reductions while building towards a fully net zero compatible future.

While the consultation intentionally excludes hydrogen and biomethane from its scope, these technologies, along with hybrid systems that can utilise them, offer a compelling solution to delivering a resilient, consumer-friendly and cost-effective transition. There is an abundance of evidence that demonstrates the significant value of hybrid heating systems (which typically combine an electric heat pump with a gas boiler) to address many of the challenges highlighted in the consultation.

IGEM’s consultation response focuses primarily on question 36.

Q36 - Do you have any evidence or views on the role of other low carbon heating systems, not discussed in this consultation, could play in decarbonising heat?

Our core position is that hybrid heating systems, including those using biomethane or low carbon hydrogen in future, represent one of the most pragmatic and high-impact solutions for properties that are hard-to-decarbonise, have limited electrical capacity or require a staged transition to low carbon heating.

Although produced in different ways, both biomethane and hydrogen can act as genuinely net zero energy sources. Biomethane derives from the natural breakdown of organic material, meaning its carbon cycle is inherently quick and circular. With biogenic carbon capture at the production plant, biomethane can even remove more carbon than it emits. Biomethane is identified as an important carbon negative technology in Minister Alan Whitehead’s recent independent review into Greenhouse Gas Removals¹.

Crucially, biomethane is already being injected into the UK gas grid and used in homes today, providing real, immediate emissions reductions without waiting for future technological breakthroughs. Today’s biomethane output is already sufficient to heat around one million homes; when paired with hybrid systems, that same volume can decarbonise up to five million.

Hydrogen, when generated using renewable electricity or paired with effective carbon capture and storage technology, offers an equally low carbon alternative. The potential for hydrogen supplies in industrial cluster areas and the government’s minded-to decision on blending hydrogen in the gas distribution network up to 20% (by volume), offer other important routes to maximising the value of green gases.

Together, these gases provide credible, scalable options for delivering clean heat as the UK transitions towards a net zero energy system.

Evidence-based rationale for hybrid solutions using green gases

Immediate deliverable emissions reduction

Analysis shows that hybrid systems transferring around 80% of annual heat demand to an electric heat pump provide substantial, near term emissions reductions even before full power decarbonisation². When the boiler component uses biomethane, a renewable fuel with the potential to be carbon negative, the remaining emissions fall significantly further³.

More recent research conducted by Guidehouse⁴ indicates that biomethane-fuelled boilers, used in combination with electric heat pumps, can deliver rapid emissions cuts of 90-95% today and close to 100% by 2050, in low-to-moderate efficiency buildings.

Biomethane availability and alignment with net zero

Sector studies indicate that the UK could sustainably produce up to 50 TWh of biomethane per annum by 2030, rising to 120 TWh by 2050⁵. Of this, up to ~40 TWh can serve residential heating demand, with the remaining optimally deployed across transport (44t HGVs), distributed industry which cannot electrify, dispatchable low carbon power generation, and delivering valuable negative emissions through carbon capture⁶.

Biomethane already delivers real emissions reductions, providing a UK-produced, low carbon alternative to fossil gas. As noted in the aforementioned independent review of greenhouse gas removals by Lord Whitehead, the high-purity biogenic CO₂ produced during biomethane upgrading can be permanently stored once CO₂ transport and storage options, particularly non-pipeline routes, are in place. This means biomethane can evolve from a net zero fuel today to a carbon negative solution over time.

These findings provide a strong basis for treating biomethane as a strategic national asset.

Electricity system resilience and avoided network reinforcement

Multiple electric-only solutions examined in the consultation increase peak electricity demand and may require costly distribution upgrades. By contrast, hybrid systems:

shift load away from peak periods using the gas vector
reduce the need for extensive network reinforcement
improve system-wide resilience during cold weather

This flexibility can materially reduce the cost of electricity grid upgrades during the transition, whilst accessing gas grid linepack storage to deliver extreme energy demand ramp-rates.

Consumer led benefits and practicality

Hybrid heating offers the benefits of:

avoiding disruptive fabric upgrades to properties (such as installing hot water storage tanks, larger capacity radiators, and larger diameter pipework behind plasterboard and under floorboards)
providing familiarity and high levels of consumer acceptance
reducing upfront costs relative to full electrification
reducing household bills through significant reduction in gas consumption (Dutch trials show a reduction in gas demand of ~75% and an associated bill reduction equivalent to ~£650 per year⁷)

DESNZ’s own public attitudes work demonstrates consumers’ reticence in paying for an electric heat pump and associated retrofit. Offering support for a hybrid heating system option will help minimise the disruption and cost for consumers and support wider participation in the energy transition.

A report by Adam Bell at Stonehaven on a ‘practical path to heat decarbonisation’⁸ supports the need for a more flexible, consumer-centred approach to heat decarbonisation where policy is designed to fit with the consumer. It highlights the value in moving beyond a single-technology focus on heat pumps that has led to a legacy of overly optimistic projections, and instead embracing a diverse range of solutions, including hybrid heating systems, giving consumers real choice and control over how they decarbonise their homes.

Published this month, a report on green gas homes and bio-hybrid technology⁴, provides further evidence to support the rationale set out above. The research shows that bio-hybrid heating systems (biomethane fuelled boilers in combination with air source heat pumps) offer a highly practical, cost-effective and immediately deployable route to decarbonising millions of homes. The research demonstrates that bio-hybrids consistently outperform heat pumps in the UK’s large stock of low to-moderate efficiency buildings, providing the lowest cost clean heating option for between 30%-45% of GB households while delivering rapid emissions cuts of 90–95% today, and close to 100% by 2050.

Because hybrids drastically reduce gas use and avoid disruptive and expensive fabric upgrades, they present a scalable solution that meets consumers where they are, supports more immediate electrification, and accelerates demand for green gas that is used sparingly. The report also highlights how bio-hybrids relieve pressure on the electricity network, reduce investment required in electricity networks and make efficient use of existing gas infrastructure.

Limitations of the consultation scope and implications

The consultation largely considers electric systems, solid biomass, renewable liquid fuels, and some hybrid configurations. IGEM recognises these technologies have roles in niche or specific contexts. However:

Solid biomass is limited by feedstock scarcity and air quality challenges and is therefore unsuitable for widespread use.
Renewable liquid fuels, while potentially valuable in off-grid locations, face sustainability and cost constraints, particularly given competing demand from aviation and road transport.
Electric-only alternatives, especially resistive systems, are often expensive to run and risk overwhelming local networks.

By contrast, hybrid systems using green gases offer a route to overcome many of these barriers and are compatible with long-term decarbonisation pathways.

Why green gas compatible hybrids must be considered

Although hydrogen and biomethane fall outside the scope of this consultation, their exclusion risks undermining several policy objectives, including:

Cost efficiency – Recent modelling on the potential for biomethane’s role in reducing the cost of net zero demonstrates that scaling up sustainable biomethane production can reduce the cost of reaching net zero by ~£150-220bn by 2050 (across building decarbonisation, power generation, transport and avoided electricity network reinforcement)⁶.
Speed of decarbonisation – Hybrids can be deployed immediately in hard-to-decarbonise homes, unlike some novel electric technologies still in early development.
Fairness and consumer choice – Hybrids provide a pathway that minimises disruption, costs and equity impacts, especially for households unable to install standalone heat pumps and those that have recently invested in a new gas boiler.

Green gas compatible hybrid heating is not currently supported within most current UK heating policies, despite representing a practical, scalable and socially fair route to decarbonising homes that are difficult or costly to electrify fully. These systems deliver meaningful carbon reductions immediately while moving to full compatibility with net zero goals in the long term. They also lower overall system costs, reduce pressure on the electricity network and allow consumers to engage in the transition in a way that is both affordable and confidence building.

IGEM encourages DESNZ to integrate these solutions into forthcoming policy developments to ensure the UK fully leverages the value of its gas networks in delivering a secure, just and efficient heat transition.

Sources

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