The cash was raised thanks to the Clean Growth Fund, Eurazeo’s Smart City fund, and Aviva Ventures. The trio join existing investor Copley Point Capital in the 12 year old company.

Cheltenham-based Rendesco works with property developers including Cala Homes & Telford Homes to install low-carbon, networks based on ground sourced heat.  It also operates networks which supply clean heat and hot water to over 8,000 homes nationwide.

As Britain’s third largest source of CO₂ emissions, ridding carbon from heating buildings is a critical challenge.  Rendesco says it is at its forefront.

Today’s new investment comes Whitehall’s closing earlier this year of final consultations on the Future Homes Standard. Its final measures will underpin the incoming government’s plans to decarbonise home heat, including banning from next January the installation of gas boilers in new homes. Similar legislative measures are also driving decarbonisation across Europe.

The cash will accelerate Rendesco’s growth plans, aimed at providing a low-carbon alternative to gas grids and cutting consumers’ bills.  Part of the money will be directed at higher tech, yielding cleverer, more consumer-focused systems to manage home energy.

The new investment is separate from, but complementary to, Rendesco’s joint venture with Last Mile Heat.  Rendesco’s new build home solutions are owned by Last Mile Heat, enabling house builders to install ground source heat solutions in their developments at a considerably lower cost than with other low-carbon heat sources.  The joint venture has already developed a pipeline of £150m worth of clean heat infrastructure, boosting futureproofed heating of dwellings.

Rendesco’s founder Alastair Murray said: “I am pleased to welcome Clean Growth Fund, Eurazeo & Aviva Ventures as investors in Rendesco.

“This funding means Rendesco is incredibly well capitalised, in parallel to the significant capital available to deploy into capex costs via Last Mile Heat.  Their collective expertise and support will be invaluable as we pursue our ambitious growth plans, rapidly expanding our clean heating solutions to reach millions of homes.”

Susannah McClintock of specialist investors the Clean Growth Fund enthused: “Decarbonising heat is critical to achieving Britain’s Net Zero targets. Rendesco’s heat network solutions provide a cost-effective, efficient route to delivering the low carbon heat required for the transition away from gas to renewables. This investment aligns with our commitment to empower early-stage entrepreneurs to tackle the climate change crisis.”

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The figures from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero cover installations to the end of December 2023.

Of 20,000 homes targeted by ministers for improvement under SHDF Wave 1, measures have been delivered in 13,100 properties, or 66% of the planned total. With Wave 1 winding down and more projects being delivered under Wave 2.1, it is increasingly unlikely that the government’s target will be met.

The vast majority of homes were upgraded from EPC rating D to C.  Under SHDF Wave 1, 19% of measures were installed in the North West, 15% in the West Midlands and 14% in the North East.  The South East and South West regions registered just 5% and 3% of their respective target.

Industry experts Procure Plus have helped organisations navigate challenges in delivering projects.

While some organisations have faced challenges in delivering projects under the scheme, market-leading procurement business Procure Plus say that they have been able to assist with unlocking the ‘huge opportunities’ that SHDF offers.

The company, which helps to deliver value for money in the social housing sector has had particular success working with organisations in the North West and West Midlands to navigate the complexities of the scheme, as well as labour market and supply chain issues.

Regional variations

Government statistics report that, of the 25,000 measures installed under SHDF Wave 1, 4,800 measures (19%) were installed in the North West region, with 3,900 measures installed in the West Midlands (15%) and 3,500 measures in the North East (14%). The South West (3%) and South East (5%) had the lowest proportion of measures delivered.

The figures show that 77% of the properties upgraded under Wave 1 were previously EPC rating D, with 5% from C, 15% from EPC E, F and G. The EPC rating of the other 3% was previously unknown.

Of the properties that started in EPC D, 77% moved into EPC C, with 12% reaching EPC B and just 1% achieving EPC A.

This reflects the fact that the vast majority of measures installed under Wave 1 were ‘fabric first,’ comprising insulation (14,500 measures, 58%) and windows and doors (5,300 measures, 21%).

Despite low take up in its first wave, the SHDF programme continues.  The majority of measures installed so far under SHDF Wave 2.1 are following a similar fabric first approach to Wave 1.

Procure Plus managing director Gwen Beeken said: “The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund brings significant opportunity to ensure our ageing housing stock is fit for the future, as well as being more comfortable and affordable for tenants.

“We often hear from the sector that there can be significant challenges in delivering SHDF projects, including issues with the labour market and supply chain.

“But that doesn’t need to be the case, appropriately considering the risks and opportunities, engaging with the supply chain and structuring the project correctly means we have many great examples across the UK of this investment being delivered successfully – on budget and on time. In all of them, the ability of landlords to work collaboratively with others to pull together, manage and continuously improve commercial arrangements has been key.

“We look forward to continuing to assisting even more fantastic organisations to rise to the challenge of SHDF.”

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Deep Green’s business model seeks to recoup the high intensity heat used in running data centres. Its technology means this energy doesn’t go to waste and instead is used to provide free heat for energy-intensive organisations like leisure centres. By teaming up with Deep Green, a public swimming pool in Devon was able to slash its pool heating bill by over 60%.

In return, Deep Green gets free cooling which provides it with a significant competitive edge over traditional data centres. This allows it to offer more affordable, highly energy-efficient computing to businesses across the UK.

Deep Green’s customers require data centre processing for a range of uses including AI, machine learning, video rendering or cloud applications. Deep Green’s current customers include York University, and the company has signed partnerships with industry suppliers Civo and Alces Flight who offer the servers to their customers.

Installed on-site, Deep Green data centres in for example swimming pools, don’t require additional grid upgrades or planning permission so can be up and running in a matter of weeks.

The investment is made via Octopus Energy Generation’s dedicated Octopus Energy Transition Fund (OETF) and the Sky (ORI SCSp) fund which it manages.

Zoisa North-Bond, CEO of Octopus Energy Generation said: “To tackle the energy crisis head-on, we need innovative solutions to unusual problems. By using excess heat from data centres to slash energy bills for communities across the UK, Deep Green solves two problems with one solution. We’re looking forward to them rapidly rolling this out and positively impacting even more people as we drive towards a cleaner, cheaper energy future.”

Mark Bjornsgaard, founder and CEO of Deep Green, commented: “We are thrilled with Octopus’s commitment to support our next phase of growth. Placing data centres within the fabric of society transforms the waste heat they produce into a valuable resource that benefits communities.

“The data centre sector is rightly facing scrutiny about its growing energy demand and associated carbon emissions. Our data centres are highly energy efficient and support local communities with free heat.”

OETF launched in 2023 to scale companies in fast-growing sectors decarbonising society, from heating, to storage, low carbon transport and more. Octopus has also backed ground-source heat pump company Kensa Group through this fund.

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But despite the upward trend, the MCS record keepers warn that the UK is still falling far short when it comes to heat pumps. The rate of installations will need to accelerate more than tenfold by 2028 to meet the government’s target of 600,000 fittings a year by 2028.

A record 30,000 air and heat source devices were fitted in 2023, the MCS reports, as householders reached for renewable solutions to combat energy’s continuing cost crisis.

The authority also logged nearly 190,000 households and businesses opting to install solar panels, overwhelmingly producing electricity.  This is the highest number since cuts to the Feed-in Tariff subsidy in 2011.

The year-end total of 220,000 new devices across both technologies was the highest for more than a decade, when now withdrawn subsidies dominated the market.

Heat pumps, working on energy exchange principles seen in fridges, saw the greatest breakthrough,

Air-source devices registered a 25% increase in MCS certifications last year, contributing to a 19% increase for all pump types.

The total number of certified heat pumps installed across the UK has now surpassed 200,000.   That’s still far short of government timelines for the low carbon technology, unveiled in the Heat and Buildings Strategy in October 2021.

The MCS Foundation said that heat pump uptake was being driven by demand for carbon-free heating, supported by government grants. The Government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant was increased in October last year from £5,000 for an air-source heat pump to £7,500, with applications for the grant up by 50% following the introduction of the higher rate.

The government is currently consulting on plans to require new homes completed from January 2025 to have a heat pump fitted, or be connected to a low-carbon heat network. New rules are also coming into force this year that will require boiler manufacturers to sell a proportionate amount of heat pumps relative to their boiler sales, under the Clean Heat Market Mechanism.

But the MCS Foundation warned that despite the upward trend, the UK is still falling short when it comes to heat pumps. The rate of installations will need to accelerate more than tenfold within the next four years to meet the Government target of 600,000 a year by 2028.

MCS spokesperson David Cowdrey said: “It is very encouraging to see the growth in all renewable energy, and particularly heat pumps. More households than ever are opting for these carbon-free and highly efficient heating systems that are zero emissions at point of use.

“But while we can expect a continued upward trend in heat pump installations, thanks to the introduction of higher grants, we will still need additional policies to achieve the exponential growth that is required now. Such policies should include reducing electricity costs to encourage heat pump uptake while tackling fuel poverty. This could be achieved by moving social and environmental tariffs from electricity bills into general taxation, and would make running heat pumps substantially cheaper than a gas boiler.”

Heat Pump Association chief executive Charlotte Lee commented: ‘It is great to see a 25% increase in MCS certified heat pump installations in 2023 compared to the previous year, demonstrating an increasing interest from consumers to switch to lower carbon heating systems.

“With the advent of the Clean Heat Market Mechanism and the Future Homes Standard”, Lee went on, “we expect this number to continue to rise in 2024 and beyond and the supply chain is gearing up to deliver. With consumer demand for heat pumps rising, we encourage all heating engineers to look ahead and invest in heat pump installation training to support the anticipated deployment and to future proof their business.’

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In helping homes replace gas heating with electric devices, the government says boosting the BUS grant to £7,500 over the summer has led to a 57% rise in BUS applications. Today’s moves are intended to accelerate that drive still further.

From green devices standards body the MCS Foundation, the response was positive. Campaigns manager Dr Richard Hauxwell-Baldwin said; “This additional funding is hugely welcome, and follows our campaign to get more government support for the energy transition.

“Heat pumps are the only viable option for decarbonising home heating at scale“, the MCS spokesman asserted. “£1.5bn more announced today will fund an additional 200,000 heat pump installations over four years”.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed in last month’s Autumn Statement that Conservatives are supporting Britain’s worst insulated homes with support measures totalling £ 6 billion.

Around 200,000 poorer households will benefit most, D-ESNZ claimed today, among a wider one million homes set to share the ministry’s claimed total investment.

Besides £1.5 billion more for boiler scrappage, the ministry’s breakdown includes the following sums for helping homes and businesses:

• £1.25 billion more for the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, supporting retrofitted insulation in 140,000 social homes
• granting £500 million to a new local authority retrofit scheme, allocated to support up to 60,000 low-income and cold homes, including those off the gas grid,
• £485 million added to the Green Heat Network Fund, allocated to help 60,000 homes and buildings tap into affordable, low carbon heating through new heat networks
• allocating £45 million to the Heat Network Efficiency Scheme, upping the performance of around 100 existing heat networks
• £225 million more for the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund
• Launching in 2025 a new £400 million energy efficiency grant targetting better insulation

Hunt commented today: “Investing in energy efficiency combined with energy security is the only way to stop ourselves being at the mercy of international gas prices, one of the main drivers of inflation”.

Energy secretary Claire Coutinho echoed the Chancellor.  “Cutting energy bills is my top priority. Today’s funding will help those who are most in need and keep around a million more families warm during winter.

“Everyone deserves to live in a warm, energy efficient home. We have already made excellent progress with nearly 50% of properties in England now having an Energy Performance Certificate of C – up from just 14% in 2010.

“This funding will help us go even further and improve 200,000 cold, low income and social homes”.

Mark Sommerfeld, the REA’s Deputy Director of policy welcomed more BUS funding.

“Since the grant level was raised this year, as called for by the REA, it is positive that the scheme has become a more attractive offer that actively enables households to invest in heat pumps, helping to decarbonise their properties. This will drive up deployment rates, which remain well behind what is needed to keep the UK aligned to heat decarbonisation targets.

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Scores of thousands of new homes and premises divided between London, Lancaster, Watford and Suffolk will benefit from the £65 million trial, warmed with streamed pixels and wonga from Whitehall’s Green Heat Network fund.

In a UK first, waste heat from the server barns close to new construction sites will be being recycled as a source of both low carbon comfort for homes and factories, as well as of thousands of new high-tech jobs.

Heat in buildings is estimated to account for 30% of all UK emissions. So the transition to networks pumped with second-life heat is a major plank in the nation’s drive towards Net Zero.

In north west London, the Old Oak & Park Royal Development Corporation straddles premises in the boroughs of Brent, Ealing, and Hammersmith & Fulham. The Corporation’s upgraded heat network, backed by £36 million of government cash, will connect 10,000 new homes and 250,000 square metres of commercial space to waste heat from rack-heavy computer ‘barns’.

OPDC chief executive David Lunts enthused: “Recycling the huge amounts of wasted heat from this locality’s data centres into heat and energy for local residents, a major hospital and other users is an exciting and innovative example of OPDC’s support for the mayor’s net zero ambitions”.

Lancaster University will fully decarbonise its campus, courtesy of £21 million given in support of a new low-carbon heat network.  Lagged pipes both over- & underground will warm its 15,000 students with heat from a large electric pump, powered by a new solar PV farm and an existing wind turbine.

Today’s round of funding comes on top of £122 million already awarded to support eleven new heat networks across the country, under the government’s Green Heat Network Fund.

Energy secretary Claire Coutinho said: “Innovative projects, like these announced today, are another example of why the UK is a world leader in cutting carbon emissions.

“We are investing in the technologies of the future so that families across the country will now be able to warm their homes with low-carbon, recycled heat, while creating thousands of new skilled jobs.”

Brent will benefit further, receive £5.2 million for a district network in south Kilburn. 2,900 customers on 34 sites will receive heat generated by air source heat pumps via a 2.79km pipe network. Gas boilers will linger as back-up.

In Suffolk, a new housing estate at Chilton Woods will see nearly a thousand homes and a primary school provided with low-carbon heating. Awarded £745,000, the project will also include a thermal battery, meaning excess energy generated can be fed into the National Grid.

Watford Community Housing (WCH), a not-for-profit provider of approximately 5,700 homes, gets £1.8 million to strip out old gas burners in its district network, replacing them with ground source and air source pumps. Turned toasty in consequence will be 252 flats in six blocks.

Energy efficiency minister Lord Callanan added to his boss’s words:   “Keeping homes warm with waste heat from technology is a glimpse into the future – and demonstrates just how innovative this country can be when it comes to reducing our carbon emissions.

“The £65 million we’ve awarded today will help spread this success across the country, by rolling out innovative low-carbon heating to help to drive down energy bills and deliver our Net Zero goal.”

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The Shipley-headquartered company’s ICON connected heat interface unit was named ‘Domestic Heating Product of the Year’ at the HVR Awards, recognising exceptional performance and customer satisfaction delivered by the unit to UK homes.

Similar to traditional gas combi boilers, the connected HIU product transfers heat from the network’s central plant room directly into home systems.

The ICON unit is electronically controlled and remotely connected, allowing for monitoring, adjustments and maintenance to be carried out remotely, thereby improving network efficiency & cutting maintenance costs.

Ian Allan, the firm’s head of market strategy, pictured, was awarded ‘Energy Champion of the Year – Individual Achievement’ at the Energy Awards. These celebrate exceptional individuals who have made a significant impact on the industry.

The prize recognises Allan’s contributions to advancing innovation in the heat network sector through digital technologies.

A 30-year veteran of heat networks, Allan has advised the Government on regulation and helped to shape policy,  through work with The Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE) and Heat Trust.

He is an authority on smart metering, data management and billing systems, and is responsible for designing and developing Switch2’s award-winning ICON Unit.

Switch2 Energy CEO Richard Harrison commented:  “We are hugely proud to have won this award for our ICON Heat Interface Unit. To have our product recognised in this way reinforces our aim to drive innovation and efficiency in the sector and continue to deliver user-friendly solutions in the transition to net zero”.

“It is also fantastic to see Ian recognised once again for the impact he has had on the sector. Given his knowledge and commitment to shaping a net-zero future through customer-centric technology, he is hugely deserving of the award and title of ‘Energy Champion.

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That’s the warning today from Heat Trust to Whitehall and to regulator Ofgem.

Responding to a joint consultation by Ofgem and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on their planned statutory protections, the national consumer champion outlined areas in which it intends to hold regulation to account on behalf of consumers.

They include ensuring consumers do not pay an unaffordable premium for being on a heat network – requiring transparency, monitoring and regulation of the root causes of high heat bills.

So is driving improved heat network reliability on both networks existing and planned, through requiring minimum technical standards, backed up by sharp enforcement teeth.

Ensuring heat suppliers are held to account for standards of fair, transparent and good-value customer service is also an area flagged by the Trust.

The protection organisation says informed, timely and targeted enforcement action are needed where these aren’t met. Clear, independent dispute resolution via the Energy Ombudsman’s office is needed, says the trust, when things go wrong.

The watchdog’s key demands included ensuring that:

• a clear culture of regulatory compliance exists from the outset
• housing and energy regulations work in harmony, not conflict, to protect consumers That’s critical, it says, since the overwhelming majority of heat suppliers are landlords.
• Britain’s most inefficient, most expensive heat networks are targeted for the speediest upgrades and repair to improve their efficiency
• Where service failures give rise to compensation, heat suppliers cannot simply recover these costs from consumers

“Since Heat Trust’s launch in 2015, we have consistently called for government intervention, to ensure heat network consumers have equivalent rights and protections to traditional gas and electricity consumers“, its director Stephen Knight said.

“We have continuously advocated for statutory regulation of heat networks and believe this can’t come quickly enough.

“Consumers must be able to have confidence in heat networks, if these networks are to help decarbonise heat through the government’s target of serving 20% of homes by 2050.

“Many heat network consumers get a reliable and value-for-money heating system. But sadly too many suffer high prices, unreliable systems and poor customer service. The experience of consumers facing huge, uncapped, price rises during the energy crisis has been especially difficult. Because heat network consumers cannot switch supplier, it’s vital that regulation delivers tangible improvements in terms of price protection, reliability and service quality.

“Our voluntary consumer protection scheme continues to lead the way in heat networks best practice and we’re delighted that the proposed statutory protections recognise this by building on our own standards of customer service. As a voluntary scheme, we cannot regulate price or technical standards and so it’s crucial that regulation addresses the root causes of consumer detriment in these areas.

For more on Heat Trust’s arguments, see here.

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They are now seeking a UK industry partner to host the pilot project which will produce low-cost steam up to 150C, a sweet spot for many industries.

Based in south-west London, Furtraheat have been awarded the funds from Innovate UK’s Combined Investor Partnership programme. It will go to build their 300kW industrial heat pump. Called Greensteam 360, the pump takes low-grade waste heat and boosts it by up to 60 degrees.

This delivers useful heat back to the customer, offering potential to cut energy use by more than 80 percent, radically reducing both energy bills and CO₂.

The 18-month project will demonstrate the pilot heat pump with an early-adopter industry partner during 2024, paving the way for a commercial product thereafter.

The Innovate UK funds have been combined with existing cash from clean tech investor Clean Growth Fund. Earlier this year it invested £1.5 million in Furtraheat, en route to delivering a net £1 million scheme.

Futraheat’s high temperature heat pump is built around the firm’s patented TurboClaw compressor technology, which can cost-effectively boost waste heat to above boiling point.

Futraheat CEO Tom Taylor, pictured with the Turboclaw, said: “We are putting out a nationwide call to find an early-mover industrial user who would like to host this ground-breaking £1 million trial.

“Seventy percent of all industrial energy demand is for heat, and a significant amount of this is for process heat in the 100-to-200C range – usually delivered as high temperature steam in industries including pharmaceuticals, food and brewing.

“Usually, this heat goes to waste. Our technology recycles low-grade waste heat and boosts it by up to 60 degrees – delivering useful heat back to the customer at up to 150C. This not only slashes energy use by more than 80 percent but can also radically reduce energy bills and a business’s CO₂.”

The company is currently testing their Greensteam 330 concept demonstrator at their Surbiton test facility which uses single-stage compression to deliver a 30C temperature lift.

The Greensteam 360 pilot unit will be designed for mass manufacture and will extend the temperature lift to 60C with a two-stage TurboClaw design.

“We are grateful to Innovate UK for their significant support and look forward to developing this product with an industry partner to deliver a product which not only pays for itself but delivers an easily adopted route to lower carbon industry.

“I would encourage any interested industrial heat user to get in touch,” Taylor concludes.   Contact Futraheat by its website.

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Screened on Monday, a ‘Panorama’ examination of Britain’s supposed unpreparedness for switching to EVs this decade has drawn the ire of the Renewable Energy Association.

The flagship BBC-TV documentary alleged installations of new public charging points would fall short of the total needed under the government’s Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate, announced in October 2021.  The policy sets a road map for ministers to deliver on its commitment that all new cars sold from 2030 must be pure EVs or hybrids.

Not true, the REA counter-blasted in a statement.   The ratio of electric vehicles per public charge point already greatly exceeds the ratio of ICE cars per petrol or diesel pump.

Deployment of charging infrastructure including public points grew 35% last year . The trade body expects the trend to continue.

The programme also claimed that a standard charge point takes an hour to deliver 38 miles of range.

“Not representative”, the REA rebutted.  “At any rapid chargepoint, most EVs on sale today can charge from 0 to 80% in under an hour. Some of them deliver over 300 miles of range”.

The UK already has over 40,000 public chargepoints, and 84% of EV owners able to charge at home, declared Matthew Adams, the REA’s transport policy manager

“Only 16% of one million-plus plug-in vehicles now on the road will need to use public charging infrastructure frequently”, Adams added.

“With the average journey in the UK being 20 minutes and with battery ranges going above 300 miles on many models, it is unlikely that these 16% of people will regularly use the public charging infrastructure”, he went on.

Panorama highlighted drivers’ difficulties with differing cash payment systems offered by charge point operators.   This is already being resolved, said the REA’s Adams.

Tough new rules from government will soon require every new point above 8kW and new and existing points above 50kW to offer readers for contactless payment. Many operators already deploy them. Best practice via PAS 1899 & other standards, said the REA, ensures chargepoint cabling is light and easily accessible.

Meanwhile trade body SolarEnergyUK has hit back at newspaper reports of drastic tail-offs of PV panels’ generating powers, once rooftops heat up beyond 40 degrees in summer.

Solar panels wilting in the heat is “a gross and fundamental misapprehension”, said the lobbyists, quoting a leading technical expert on the technology.

Alastair Buckley, Sheffield University’s professor of organic electronics  commented: “High temperatures affect only marginally the output of solar power – it’s a secondary effect.

“If it’s sunny and hot, you are going to get good power output. It doesn’t fall off a cliff,” Buckley advised.

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Last year the operator submitted five tenders for the Wythenshawe innovation under the Carbon & Energy Framework, a government mechanism created to foster & manage complex energy upgrades in the NHS and public sector. The CEF says it has guided or is managing 60 schemes for big infrastructure upgrades.

To progress the Wythenshawe project, IGas announced this morning that an innovation partnership will be set up between IGas’s geothermal division, the hospital’s trust and the CEF, to provide a framework for the parties to work together through the project’s development phases,.   Further developments will be announced.

IGas is in course of transitioning away from drilling for oil and gas, in a strategic shift to low carbon energy. Last year it wrote down £30 million as it abandoned plans to produce shale gas via hydraulic fracturing. It plans to re-brand as Star Energy after next month’s annual general meeting.

The company also expects further progress later this year in digging two geothermal shafts up to 1.5 kilometres deep under Stoke-on-Trent’s Etruria neighbourhood, pictured.  The firm expects imminent financial close on that project, with digging earmarked to begin later this year.

Financing of the Etruria shafts depends on the outcome of a funding application to the Green Heat Network Fund Transition Scheme, a three year, £288 million capital grant fund set up to support the construction of new low and zero carbon heat networks including deep geothermal wells.

It has lined up SSE Energy Solutions as offtaker for the Etruria project.

Bank of America recently took its share in IGas to 5.7%.

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Seven UK biomass plants, three CHP sites, and an energy-from-waste facility make up the deal. No price was divulged.

Gren sees the purchase as its springboard into UK district heating, whose networks it sees as among Europe’s fastest growing.

Managed networks, replacing individual boilers in homes and premises, are a mainstay of heat consumption in Scandinavia and northern Europe.

Gren already runs approximately 600 kilometres of pipelines under cities in Finland, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania, warming nearly 180,000 homes and 600 commercial premises.

District heating lingers as a Cinderella here, however, heating only 2% of UK buildings. Bristol – pictured – last year bought in Vattenfall to revive the city’s ambitions by extending two existing networks to seven by 2027.

Last year the Climate Change Committee recommended that networks’ contribution of total UK heat demand should rise to 18% by 2050, if Net Zero targets are to be met.

Continuing government grant schemes set up to raise pipelines’ profile include the Green Heat Network Fund and the Heat Network Efficiency Scheme, scheduled to enter its third round next year.   A procurement database monitors developers’ applications to lay more pipes.

Jeremy Hunt’s spring budget included a £380 million package earmarked to underpin tariffs to customers for heat or power supplied over networks.

Gren says locally sourced fuels, mainly biomass and waste, power its existing networks, producing heat and baseload electricity to the local grid.  Its new UK assets will follow the same route.

The operator changed ownership itself in 2021, following a buy-out by Partners Group, a global private equity firm, acting on behalf of its clients.

The acquirors’ CEO Ilkka Niiranen said “The UK energy market is expected to go through a period of unprecedented change, and we want to be in its vanguard.

“Gren intends to become one of the leading Northern European energy companies, investing in infrastructure, driving decarbonisation, and contributing positively to the societies around us”.

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Improved design of devices intended to extract ambient heat from air means they are delivering more heat at lower cost, long-term research funded by the Energy Systems Catapult claims.

With backing from the D-ESNZ energy ministry, sponsors from the Zero Innovation Centre recruited three contractors in logging output and efficiencies for over 700 installed ASHPs through two British winters and a summer up to last August.

On the coldest days, the in-situ equipment averaged output efficiencies of 2.88 times over a twelve month test interval, a 40% rise on a similar mass test in 2014.

The Energy Systems Catapult study found no significant difference between the efficiencies of pumps working at lower or higher temperatures.   The latter process air at temperatures close to those reached by gas boilers.

Air- or ground-sourced pumps with minimal emissions are central to the government’s ambition to strip carbon from Britain’s homes & workplaces by 2035.  Under its £450 million Boiler Upgrade Scheme, the Johnson government last April began offering £5,000 grants in a bid to have 600,000 installed in the nation’s homes by 2027, up from only 35,000 put in during 2020.

After eighteen months of field research, the ESC plans a further series of evaluations.  But Marc Brown the study’s research lead, says it has already slayed one myth, that ASHPs work badly in cold weather.

“With the release of this data, we can finally put to bed the notion that heat pumps do not work in cold weather conditions and that they are inefficient”, said Brown.

“We’ve observed the exact opposite. They are three times more efficient than gas boilers and work in cold weather conditions. Innovation is changing the game in the heating sector.

The ESC research boss called for government and industry to press for more re-training of installers, more promotion and more investment in the technology’s supply chains.

“We’ve done the hard work and demonstrated that heat pumps work”, said Brown. ”The UK is heat pump ready”.

Read the ESC report here.

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“Nobody’s going to be forced to ditch their boiler “ the minister of state at D-ESNZ assured readers of the Sunday Telegraph yesterday.  Forcing “households to replace gas boilers with heat pumps would be against the British character”, Callanan wrote.

The minister is pictured at left above, inspecting new heat pumps at Octopus’s factory in Northern Ireland, purchased last year.

This morning Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy & Utilities  Alliance has written to the minister on behalf of member firms in eight related trade sectors, asking for clarification, adding that current British government policy is in effect, just that.

While agreeing with the minister’s statements, the boss points out that it is current Government policy for fossil fuel boilers to be replaced by heat pumps. He has now demanded urgent clarification of what current policy is.

Mr Foster said: “Lord Callanan’s words are welcome. We agree with them. Nobody should be forced to ditch their boiler and to force a heat pump onto households does go against the British character. But the Minister’s own department are pursuing a policy that directly contradicts what the Minister has said.”

“The Heat and Building Strategy clearly states that from 2026 homes off the gas grid will not be allowed to install a new oil or LPG boiler. This forces households to ditch their boiler. Yet now the Minister says he is against his own policy.”

“Officials in the Minister’s department have described off gas grid homes as ‘low hanging fruit’, easy to pick off and have a heat pump installed to replace a boiler” Foster notes “For those currently using a gas boiler, the Heat and Buildings Strategy identified 2035 as the date after which a gas boiler could not be installed.

“Has this deadline now been scrapped, too? It’s chaos”, Foster writes.  “Whether you make boilers, heat pumps or both, confusion is the very last thing needed.”

As recently as Wednesday, the House of Lords select on committee energy criticised Callanan’s ministry for slow progress in delivering on its £450 million policy of replacing boilers with lower-carbon heat pumps.

Low public awareness and a lack of trained technicians leave uptake of D-ESNZ’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme dawdling at less than half its intended rate since launch in May,

Their Lordships called on Callanan and colleagues for urgent improvement, including carrying almost £80 million of unspent cash from its first year of budget into the second.

The scheme offers £5,000 to qualifying homes seeking to upgrade from gas boilers to electric heat pumps.  The Johnson administration expected it to notch up 20,000 home instals for each of its three years.

“We need to clarify the situation urgently”, the EUA boss writes today. “Consumers need to know what the future holds for them, as does industry. One minute gas boilers are being banned, the next it is against the British character to do this”.

In his blog today, the EUA boss lays into influential advocates for heat pumps who put personal considerations ahead of their own adoption of that heat technology.

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Uptake of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme is lagging at less than half the intended rate since its launch in May, the Lords’ Environment & Climate Change Committee says. It calls on ministers for urgent improvement, including carrying almost £80 million of unspent cash from its first year of budget into the second.

Low public awareness and a lack of trained technicians dog the scheme, the committee found.

The scheme offers £5,000 grants to qualifying homes seeking to upgrade heating from conventional gas boilers to electric heat pumps, in practice overwhelmingly air-sourced.  The Johnson administration expected the scheme to notch up 20,000 home instals for each of its three years.

Instead, figures for the BUS’s first nine months show that upgrades are running at an annual rate of only 10,000 or so.    The committee is asking that the unspent share of the full £150 million allocated for the subsidy’s first year be kept available into the second, and not clawed back by chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

At less than 7,700 completed instals before this month, completed replacements are running significantly behind the government’s release of funds to billpayers, reinforcing widely held fears among trade bodies about a shortage of qualified technicians.

With 17% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from homes, the committee’s chair Baroness Parminter reminds ministers in a letter today that the transition to low-carbon heat is fundamental to Net Zero.

“The government must quickly address the barriers we have identified to a successful take-up of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme in order to help grow the take up of low-carbon heating systems. It is vital they do so if we are going to meet our Net Zero ambitions,” she writes.

Among those barriers, says the committee, are the government’s inadequate promotion of the scheme, the shortage of installers, and insufficient independent advice for householders.

Even with the grants, heat pumps remain too expensive for even middle-income homes, the peers allege.  As chancellor, Rishi Sunak scrapped VAT on heat pumps & low carbon home power in last March’s budget.

Last month British Gas offered purchase and installations of air source pumps starting at £3,000.  Last week Octopus undercut its rival, offering £2,500 for an entry level system. Most homes would pay only £4,000 for a pump with a 20-year life, said the supplier, double a conventional boiler’s.

Misleading messages including from the Government over hydrogen’s long term suitability to heat homes, adds to bill payers’ confusion, says the committee.

Fears over running costs could also deter pump take-up, say peers. Progress is urgently needed through electricity market reform to ensure they are affordable.

Methods for awarding Energy Performance Certificates need revision, their Lordships recommend, to properly reward households seeking to switch to low-carbon heating. Planning laws should be relaxed, so pumps can be sited closer to neighbouring homes.

Their pleas echo early awareness among tradespeople of the BUS’ failings. As early as July installers’ groups were calling for a rethink.  The following month, the Heat Pump Association called for radically expanded training to boost numbers of technician from 3,200 in 2021, to over 50,000 this decade.

More scathing criticism of the BUS, and of the peers’ desired improvements, came today from the century-old Energy & Utilities Alliance, representing trade bodies in water & industrial heating and equipment manufacture.

EUA CEO Mike Foster, “While we agree the Boiler Upgrade Scheme is failing, we want to see it scrapped, rather than see the recommendation of the committee to double-down on the flawed policy be supported.”

“Giving a £5,000 taxpayer handout to the well-off is immoral and simply cannot be justified when millions are living in fuel poverty and we all face a 20 per cent increase in our bills from April”, said the EUA head.

The Heat Pump Federation was more supportive, echoing the Lords’ strictures.

“The committee’s findings chime precisely with what heat pump installers and consumers are telling us”, said Bean Beanland, the HPF’s director of growth & external affairs.

“We are delighted that the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee finds that significant changes must be swiftly made to give the heat pump industry the opportunity to deliver on the original policy intent”.

“Heat pump take-up across the country is increasing, as is industry investment, but the BUS’s first year of operation has been challenging for all the reasons outlined by the Lords Committee,” the HPF spokesperson went on.

Improvements to the BUS, plus early Whitehall action on the fair pricing of increasingly low carbon electricity, would prime investment & training needed for the growth anticipated due to the Future Homes Standard expected in 2025 and the consulted-on ban in 2026 of replacement oil boilers in homes off the gas grid.

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