Homes using electric heat pumps, insulation and EVs use less than half of the imported energy than a household reliant on gas and petrol does.

This is according to a new report from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, which found that the UK currently imports most of its natural gas via pipelines from Norway as well as LNG shipments, primarily from the US. With domestic oil and gas production in long-term decline, the research reinforces calls to boost clean British electricity generation and its use in homes and transport.

The report explains how a typical household using a gas boiler and petrol car will be dependent on imports for almost 70% of its energy, or 17 megawatt hours (MWh) a year. Whereas a home insulated to EPC C standards, using a heat pump and an electric car will use less than half (45%) of the energy imports of a household with a gas boiler and a petrol car, at around 7.5MWh a year.

Homes with a heat pump and electric car and also solar panels would use around a third (36%) of the fuel imports of a typical home – just 6MWh a year.

Meanwhile, homes that run a diesel car and use an oil, rather than gas, boiler are even more dependent on foreign sources of energy, being almost 90% import dependent. Worse still, their higher energy demand means that their imports of 30MWh a year are 80% higher than those of a typical household.

Heat pumps are manufactured at various sites in the UK including those made by Kensa in Cornwall, Vaillant in Derbyshire, Octopus Energy in Northern Ireland and Mitsubishi Electric in Scotland. At present, fully electric Minis are made in the Oxford area, and production of the new generation fully electric Nissan will start in Sunderland in 2026. Hybrids made in the UK include the Toyota Corolla and several Jaguar Land Rover models.

“Those who want to be ‘energy patriotic’ and buy British homegrown energy should be switching from gas boilers and petrol cars to electric heat pumps and EVs that increasingly run on British wind and solar energy,” says Jess Ralston, energy analyst at the ECIU. “As North Sea oil and gas output continues its inevitable decline, the dependence on foreign imports for households using boilers and internal combustion cars will only become more stark.

“Generating more British renewable energy and using it to power heat pumps and electric cars would get households, and the UK as a whole, off energy imports and remove the risk of the kind of price volatility we’ve seen in recent years. The government has increased the grant for heat pumps, but then cut other policy under intense lobbying pressure from gas boiler manufacturers which likely means fewer heat pumps sold, leaving households and the UK more dependent on foreign gas.”

Read the report HOUSEHOLD ENERGY: BUYING BRITISH.