Unlocking the Gas Safe Register

Unlocking the Gas Safety Register could accelerate the UK’s clean heat economy

Ambient, the independent not for profit which uses data to drive clean energy throughout Britain, recently released its latest report into the unlocking of the Gas Safe Register.

Ambient found that by releasing the data, it could accelerate the UK’s clean heat economy. In particular, it:

• Found that after analysing a sample of approximately 60,000 records from the Gas Safe Register, 17% of UK boilers are between 12 years old and 15 years old
• Estimates that 3.9million gas boilers will need replacement between now and 2027. Yet rather than future plan, two thirds of homeowners will only change their heating system once it breaks down

Ambient believes that harnessing the full Gas Safe Register dataset could speed up the UK’s clean heat transition. Benefits would include:

• a thriving clean heat economy with high paying jobs
• faster grid upgrades
• reduced fuel poverty leading to warmer more comfortable homes
• increased investor confidence unlocking private sector capital to support the transition
• enabling the private sector and government to work together to deliver the UK’s decarbonisation targets

We support Ambient’s work in this area as it highlights exactly the issues facing the Government and the industry, as well as hundreds of thousands of homeowners. If action is only taken when it is too late - whereby gas boilers are chosen for convenience - the UK’s transition to a cleaner and greener heating economy will continue to move at a snail’s pace. Being able to identify which homeowners have older boilers, with data made available in using Gas Safe Register, the Government and industry can target them with compelling clean heat options before they find themselves in what we call ”distress situations”.

Philip Jackson, our co-founder said of the report: “Having accurate data on boiler age at household level is critical. Together with other public datasets this creates a tremendous opportunity to support the UK’s clean heat transition. This is especially true for ‘distress’ situations, where boiler failure is imminent. EPC data has been transformational to this industry. Gas Safe data will take this much further, driving innovation that will support both the public and private sector in delivering on net zero ambitions. We fully support Ambient’s objectives of having this publicly funded data set released in full to accelerate growth in the clean heat economy.

Read the report in full here.