Pasties are sexier than Gas Boilers

Following a recent visit to Portcullis House, Westminster to push for greater energy savings for consumer gas bills, I had a revelation: gas boilers are just not sexy enough for this Government!


A strange conclusion you might think. Or not, when you consider the recent scandal over the Pasty Tax fiasco. All that hoo-hah for a tax that would raise just £50m a year, while consumers are paying a whopping £800m a year or so more than they need on their gas bills. It begs the question, why is the Government dragging its heels when it could act now to stop this waste of energy and put an end to these massively, unnecessarily, high gas bills?

Admittedly, some MPs have recently begun to criticise the Green Deal, which incidentally does seem as though it may miss the intended mark by a country mile if consumers don’t buy – literally – into the concept of an ‘it’s good for you’, £10,000 home secured spending spree. Not to mention that this needs to be supplemented by Energy Company Obligation, or another £1billion granny fuel tax.

However, it seems to me that the Government in general and, to a large extent, the industry, have substantially misled the public on two scores: inflated claims regarding the carbon savings of renewable energy products, and inaccurate energy efficiency labelling of products, such as the A rated condensing gas boilers which are simply not as efficient as the consumer believes them to be.

That last fact is what led me to invent the GasSaver, an energy saving technology that improves the efficiency of gas boilers by capturing and reusing the energy that would otherwise be wasted. The boiler therefore uses less energy, cutting carbon and fuel bills.

When I met with around 30 MPs back in October 2010, the general consensus was that the GasSaver, a unique, affordable British invention was a ‘no brainer’ and should be a part of the Green Deal. Yet since that meeting, 3 million ‘less efficient’ condensing boilers have been installed. Consequently, consumer gas bills are now around £800m a year more than they need to be. So what’s holding the Government back?

We come back to the misrepresentation of what constitutes energy efficiency technology. Before the Green Deal can really work, the Government, civil servants and the industry have to correct fundamental customer misconceptions, firstly with accurate details of the real carbon and energy savings of renewables, and secondly by showing how simple, cost-effective, UK energy efficiency led technologies make a more significant and affordable contribution to reducing UK consumer gas bills.

Both the Government and, in particular, the energy supply companies, face a huge lack of consumer confidence. Some say there are lies, damned lies and statistics. I’d say there are energy policies, energy bills and fuel poverty. Both the policies and the bills seem to me deliberately misleading and designed to fool the public into spending more money than necessary.

The Government and the industry owe it to their voters and customers to do more to help them make real reductions in their energy bills by using proven energy saving technologies.

If a £50m Pasty Tax sticks in the throat, what on earth would consumers make of the billions of pounds of unnecessary energy bills that support poor legislation, poor energy labelling and an energy supply monopoly?

Now if only boilers were as sexy as pasties!

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