Now offering £7,500 to homes that strip out old gas-fired heating, the government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme has appeared to under-perform in the two years since it opened to voucher applications.  Funding of £450 million for the BUS is approved by D-ESNZ until next year.

But figures released today by the ministry show a 93% near-doubling year on year last month of applications for the scheme.

By the end of April, a total of 40,259 applications for BUS re-imbursement had reached the ministry during the two years of the scheme. All but 4% were for air-sourced heat pumps.

Raising the BUS grant in October by half to £7,500 seems to have sped up allocations.  Applications for cash to redeem vouchers underpinning installations rose last month by 57%, compared with April 2023.  Vouchers issued towards costs rose too over the same period, up 69% to just under 1,800 last month.

All told, just over 25,000 home boilers have been replaced under the BUS, today’s figures show. That appears still to lag ministers’ expectations. When announced in 2021, the BUS set a target of 600,000 replacements by 2028.

Average costs in the market of a system redeemed during the BUS’s two years has been £13,150 for an airsource pump and £25,00 for a ground source pump, the figures show.  Both values include the grant value.

Data released by Ofgem also shows that there have been more than 40,000 applications in total, with the scheme having paid out over 25,000 grants, with more than £148 million issued.

Rural homes account for 57% of all pump installations paid for under the BUS. 54% were on the gas grid.

From Swedish pump manufacturer & installer Aira, UK chief executive Daniel Särefjord acknowledged how the government’s raising the BUS grant to £7,500 had put wheels under the market.

“This helping hand has raised awareness of the benefits of innovative heat pumps”, said Särefjord, “such as lower heating costs, greater energy security for the UK and a 75% reduction in heating-related carbon emissions and air pollution in comparison to a domestic gas or oil boiler.

“After the election”, the Aira boss continued, “I hope the new government will work closely with the British heat pump sector to meet our climate commitments, decarbonise homes and secure a fair deal for UK residents.

“In the next parliament, our much-needed energy transition will depend on MPs scrapping planning policy red tape, rebalancing the taxes and levies on electricity and gas, as well as continuing and progressing the nation’s subsidy offering.”

Ministers point to pricing moves from some energy retailers to make heat pumps more attractive still.  Octopus Energy and British Gas both offers complete heat pump installations from £500.

Some offer tariffs designed specifically to work with heat pumps. Octopus’s Cozy electricity tariff can save heat pump users an estimated £96 compared with a standard flexible tariff.  Ovo’s Heat Pump Plus tariff allows customers access to run a pump on a specialist tariff fixed at 15p/kWh.

“These latest numbers show that for more and more families, the switch to a heat pump is starting to make financial sense”, said energy secretary Claire Coutinho.

“Our plan is to give families a helping hand, rather than forcing them to make expensive changes before they are ready”.

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in December the ministry also cancelled progression of a village-scale hydrogen trial at Winlaton near Redcar, pictured.

Officials now believe the low carbon gas, in either its fossil-fuel-derived blue hue, or the cleaner green variety electrolysed with wind-generated electricity, may have a role to play in heat decarbonisation, but in slower time and in only ‘some’ locations.

D-ESNZ plans to take a final decision in 2026, after assessing evidence including from a neighbourhood-scale hydrogen trial in Fife and other studies across Europe.

Britain’s four main operators of gas networks have lobbied Whitehall hard for hydrogen to be viewed as a panacea, a high convenience, low cost replacement for methane-heavy, climate-wrecking ‘natural’ gas in Britain’s 30 million homes.

In October 2022, the then D-BEIS ministry invited the four to commit to operational trials, leading to mass deployment.  All four responded with business plans.

But the hydrogen drive had been opposed as impractical, manipulative and still polluting by advocates for electric heat.

One immediately welcomed Whitehall’s backtracking yesterday.  James Standley, chief technical officer of Truro-based Kensa, Britain’s only manufacturer of heat pumps, and a company part-owned by Octopus Energy,  said abandoning the village-scale trial was “further recognition that hydrogen has no major role to play in future home heating”.

“Every academic study on the issue, the economics and the physics demonstrates this”, Standley went on. “The government should now take the next logical step and rule out hydrogen heating for anything other than a small number of very specific cases.

Electrification, whether via heat pumps or heat networks, remains the best and quickest way to achieve clean heat while ensuring the best outcomes for consumers, Standley opined.

“The longer hydrogen remains part of the conversation”, the Kensa boss said, “the further the transition will be delayed, hampering the speed at which these already proven technologies are rolled out.”

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The collaboration will see Daikin Altherma 3 heat pumps integrated with the Hive devices to yield greater visibility for customers when controlling of home heating. This includes allowing homeowners to personalise heating schedules, track spending and set budgets, whilst also optimising their heat pump for use when electricity is cheaper and greener because there is low demand on the grid.

Customers will be able to control the usage of their heat pump via the Hive app, which is a whole home smart hub for connectivity across heating, lighting, batteries and electric vehicle chargers.

Both businesses will be trialling the integration later this year and have plans to roll out the product offering widely once the trial is complete.

Gail Parker of Hive said: “Domestic heating is one of the largest emitters of carbon in the UK and will require collaboration to address this challenge. As we integrate Daikin heat pumps with our market leading Hive technology, we are making electric heating affordable and simple by giving them the visibility they need to control their heat pump and energy usage.

“As we work towards heat pumps joining the Hive ecosystem of well-loved products, we’re providing customers with a simple way to see and manage all their devices in one easy to use app.”

Now part of British Gas, Hive launched in 2013 and claims am installed base of 2 million thermostats, enabling householders to lower their carbon footprint.

For Daikin, Iain Bevan, its director for residential new business, commented: “If the UK is going to hit its legally binding commitment to achieve Net Zero by 2050, we have to decarbonize domestic space and water heating. Combining a smart controller, like Hive, with a low carbon heat pump not only gives people more control, it can also help them get the perfect temperature and save them even more money at the same time.

“Daikin is excited to be working with Hive to fully integrate their smart controller technology with our market leading heat pump technology. This collaboration could help tens of thousands of people decarbonize their domestic heating, reducing their carbon footprint and help address climate change.”

As well as helping customers optimise their heat pump usage to make them more affordable, Hive and British Gas will shortly be launching a heat pump tariff. This will be intended to cut running costs and encourage the installation of heat pumps, still lagging at less than 40% of the rate required to reach the 600,000 parc targeted by government for 2028

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With gas boilers banned from 2025 as a heating source in new English  & Welsh homes, analysis of recent official data on heat pump installations in new homes points to the necessity for builders to up their game radically.

Of the 1.1 million new homes logged as finished between 2019 and 2023 in the two nations, only 4.53% – fewer than one in twenty – had either air- or ground-source heat pumps fitted by the builders, ready for use when the first owners moved in.

The figures emerge from analysis by price comparison website Confused.com of compulsory Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) issued by local planning authorities in respect of new dwellings.

Year-by-year analysis indicates that pump installations are improving, but still far too slowly. Air source heat pumps were fitted to only 2.68% of new homes in 2019. That share rose to 7.58% last year, buoyed by increasing environmental concerns & advances in heat pump technology.

Scale economies mean companies fitting the devices as part of a home’s initial construction can achieve unit savings as high as 60% against the prices paid by individuals to convert their existing homes.

But today’s figures point to greedy volume house builders preserving their profits, shirking social and environmental responsibilities, by leaving owner-occupying individuals to face the greater unit cost and inconvenience of post-completion private retrofits.

Linked to the 2025 ban on gas boilers in new homes, the Sunak government has adopted a Johnson-era target of 600,000 heat pumps installed by 2028, replacing conventional gas boilers.   But the goal has been dogged by criticism of poor subsequent promotion from Whitehall, low awareness among consumers of the technology & fears about its supposed complexity. A continuing lack of skilled retro-fitting pump technicians and ambiguous messages from makers of conventional boilers, are among factors also stalling the drive.

Measures by Sunak’s government to speed up domestic pump adoption include raising last year to £7,500 grants to replace conventional boilers. Even that improvement failed to boost retrofit installs of pumps; spending watchdog the National Audit Office found last month that, over the eighteen months to January,  they ran at less than half the required rate.

Last month the government launched a planning consultation, cutting separation distances between homes of external devices.

Geographical uptake of domestic low carbon heat remains patchy, the survey finds. King’s Lynn & W Norfolk tops the list of best authorities identified by Confused.com for heat pumps fitted as standard.  52.12% of its 1,300 dwellings finished during the four year  period feature an air source device.  Ceredigion, with 39.26%, and Breckland in Norfolk with 38.58%, occupy lesser medal positions in a top 10 table, borne up by Cornwall’s 24.2%.

Worst areas are Liverpool city council, Halton on Merseyside and Sandwell in the west Midlands. None of these laggard authorities recorded more than 0.1% of its new builds with heat pumps.

Fastest improvers over the four years among the nations’ planning authorities include Bromsgrove, where integrated heat pumps appeared in 0.6% of new homes in 2018, but in over 46% last year. Councils in the Cotswolds, Isle of Angelsey, Pembrokeshire and Dacorum in Hertfordshire also all leapt from negligible numbers, to over a third of new dwellings in 2023.

Read the full Confused.com report here.

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Greg Jackson’s bouncy renewables-to-heat pumps creation, privately held, gained more than 1.9 million net customers in the twelve months since March 2023, latest statistics from Ofgem reveal.

That rocket skywards puts the generator-retailer on a market share now of 22%, with 6.8 million households served.  Octopus was the only large energy supplier to increase its market share over the past year.

The company’s spokespeople say it is persuading more Brits than any of its rivals to switch away from existing suppliers.  Over the same period, the firm accepted more than 800,000 customers from other providers, equal to one account switched inbound every minute.

In a separate mass transfer, 1.3 million households moved over from Shell Energy Retail following Octopus’ takeover of the business in late 2023.

The figures mean Octopus is now officially the UK’s largest electricity supplier, only eight years after launching to the market.

Company spokespeople point to the brand’s popularity among its own customers. Octopus Energy comes out on top in almost every service ranking, including Which?, Trustpilot and Money Saving Expert. It is also the only energy supplier named as a Which? Recommended Provider for seven years in a row.

TIME Magazine has named Octopus as one of the world’s ‘100 Most Influential Companies’. Britain’s government recently featured it as a poster child for the country’s businesses in its ‘GREAT’ campaign, intended to attract foreign investmen.

After rapid worldwide expansion, including into Japan & Italy and investing in both European offshore wind and in Xlinks, the Morocco-to-Devon wind and solar mega-venture, Octopus says it is active in 18 countries, looking after almost 8 million households globally. It is also one of the largest investors in renewables in Europe, managing a portfolio worth £7 billion.

The technical core of Octopus’s success – its Kraken platform for billing, fulfilment and power trading – is now licensed to 54 million customer accounts across 16 countries. It is increasingly being adopted in other sectors such as water and broadband.

Pictured above with Kraken boss Deepak Ravindran, Octopus’ founder Greg Jackson commented: “We’ve invested relentlessly in outstanding people and technology to deliver better customer service and lower costs.  Today’s news shows that this works.

“I hope that we can inspire both entrepreneurs and existing companies”,  Jackson went on.

“By investing for the long-term, and by truly focusing on customers, they can deliver success for themselves and for those they serve.”

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The public spending watchdog lambasts today mixed signals from ministers. These, it claims, imperil their goal of 600,000 domestic installations of the devices by 2028.

Home heating represents 18% of UK carbon emissions, according to the Climate Change Committee. Its independent scientists say £162 Billion of extra investment is needed over three decades to 2050 to install low-carbon heating in the UK’s 28 million households.

The flagship Boiler Upgrade Scheme is underperforming, the NAO finds, with under 19,000 pumps installations completed between May 2022 and last December.  D-ESNZ had expected it to deliver 50,000 installations by this point.

Boosting last year the BUS grant to householders to £7,500 – roughly 60% of an average pump installation – has still left take-up running at half the rate needed, according to the NAO’s report out today.

BUS applications in January 2024 had risen nearly 40% in twelve months, the report accepts. But more data is required to determine whether that’s a just blip.

The UK’s shortage of qualified technicians also slows the market, leaving upfront costs of installation falling more slowly than Whitehall had hoped.

Fear of high usage costs are another drag in cleaning home heat, the NAO reports today. D-ESNZ delayed its planned work to reduce running costs, shifting some levies & charges from electricity to gas bills. The department says that price rebalancing remains an essential policy but is challenging.

The watchdog’s head Gareth Davies also finds D-ESNZ has no long-term plan to raise low levels of awareness among households of the steps needed to decarbonise home heating.

“DESNZ’s progress in making households aware and encouraging them to switch to low-carbon alternatives has been slower than expected”, Davies notes.

Upgrading gas grids to accept green hydrogen is one option. DESNZ is developing its understanding of the consequences for gas networks of decarbonising home heating. But trials intended to inform government’s decisions have been delayed or cancelled, says the NAO.

Stakeholders told researchers continuing uncertainty is likely to limit the ability of local authorities and industry to plan and invest, to slow progress.

The NAO recommends government considers providing more certainty on the role of hydrogen in home heating before 2026.

“The NAO is right to highlight the serious challenge posed by low consumer awareness,”  Good Energy CEO Nigel Pocklington responded.

“We commissioned Opinium research who found almost a quarter of UK residents mistakenly think that running a heat pump costs more than a gas boiler”, Pocklington said. “A fifth believe they only work in newer homes. 

The supplier’s boss declared; “We’ll continue running our own campaigns to counter the myths and misinformation.

“But the Government must step up as well, and avoid net zero being a potential ‘culture war’ issue.” 

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Twenty-five year veteran Kensa believes its ground sourced, ‘game-changing’ Shoebox NX pump is suited to 60% of UK homes, including high-rise apartments and Victorian terraces.

The firm claims networked ground sourced pumps are 20% cheaper to install and run than air sourced equivalents.  Small enough to fit in a cupboard, and designed with local heat grids in mind, the Shoebox NX is positioned to replicate and update the model of established gas grids.

As much as a third of greenhouse gas emissions come from heat, and 6.5 million UK homes are thought to be in fuel poverty.  Kensa says its compact solution will boost pump installations, shielding millions from unpredictable energy costs by replacing imported gas with domestically produced renewable electricity.

Kensa CEO Tamsin Lishman said: “This is a game-changing heat pump, designed for the UK.

“Until now, achieving mass heat pump rollout has been a complex challenge. With our Shoebox NX, we’ve engineered a small, high-performance heat pump that’s ready to replace gas as the main home heating choice.

“When combined with our Networked Ground Source Heat Pumps solution, it unlocks cosy homes in the winter and cooler homes in the summer for almost anyone, and at low costs to the consumer,” Lishman added.

For 25 years Kensa has been pioneering pump technology, including ground source devices. The firm says tests prove its ShoeboxNX is five times more efficient than a gas boiler, and can heat water to over 60^oC without the need for an immersion heater.  It has an A+++  efficiency rating and a 25-year life expectancy.

The product’s launch is supported by investment house Legal and General Capital.  Its head of clean energy investments John Bromley commented:

“Housing requires some of the most substantial and immediate overhauls of any industry to improve standards, reduce running costs for consumers, and to reach net zero. The Kensa Group’s highly efficient, networked ground-source heating and cooling will play a key part in this transition.

“As an experienced energy transition investor, we are proud to be supporting Kensa’s growth and we are delighted to see the launch of their latest ground-breaking Shoebox NX heat pump, a culmination of years of expertise and development.

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This week housing ministers launched a consultation aimed at accelerating uptake of the clean heat devices in English homes, towards a goal of hooking up 600,000 pumps every year.  Currently, instals run at less than 5% of that figure.

Reducing to below one metre the distance separating externally-mounted devices from neighbours’ properties is among steps proposed, under revisions favoured for air-sourced pumps’ ‘permitted development’ status.  Making pump-fitting as easy as erecting a garden shed or installing a jacuzzi shape ministers’ intentions.

The consultation runs until 9 April. Details are here.

Homes are estimated to account for around a quarter of current UK carbon emissions. Daniel Särefjord, boss of Aira UK, a recent entrant to the nation’s pump market, says the devices offer potential to reduce that footprint by as much as 17%.

“It is crucial to recognise the transformative potential of heat pump technology in lowering energy bills and emissions,” Särefjord said.

“We need more policy changes like this without delay to bring us closer to reaching our nation’s legally binding Net Zero targets. It’s undeniable that the time for action is now.”

“Today, 95% of the UK’s gas boilers are still being replaced with the same polluting and highly inefficient systems at the end of their lifespan, despite the availability of more sustainable and cost-effective alternatives, such as heat pumps”, the Aira leader went on.

“Up to half of these gas boilers are being replaced without even leaving the consumer much of a choice, because currently months of planning policy red tape must be overcome before a heat pump installation is permitted.

“Very few individuals and families can accept to live without heating and hot water for months on end to finally be able to ditch their dirty fossil-fuelled boiler”.

Home heat pumps can be four times more efficient than a gas boiler, Särefjord said, consuming only small amounts of energy.   Addressing another consumer worry, modern home pumps produce as little sound as a domestic refrigerator, he added.

Swedish-based Aira has committed £300 million towards fitting a million pumps in UK homes by 2027.

Addressing the nation’s shortage of qualified installers, the firm is developing skills centres in London and Sheffield, the latter following its purchase of contractor All Seasons Energy.

In December the Heat Pump Association called for a temporary tariff discount favouring residential installations. It would redress cost distortions in home heating caused by environmental levies contained in electricity bills.  These, said the HPA, frustrate the government’s own ambitions to decarbonise home heat.

An interim measure bridging the gap until wider reform is achieved in the nation’s electricity supply, the device-specific tariff discount would require £533 million up to 2027, the body estimates.

“Action must be taken to change the energy price signals so that the lowest carbon heat is the lowest cost heat, which in turn will accelerate the deployment of heat pumps, HPA CEO Charlotte Lee said at the time.

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Extra power needed by such clean tech upgrades can mean that the fuse controlling a home’s incoming power would need to be upgraded by the local distribution network operator DNO.

Empowering Octopus’ installers to accommodate such devices overcomes the problem.

The two companies have signed a new agreement, allowing Octopus Energy engineers to upgrade the fuse themselves at the same time as they are installing heat pumps, EV chargers and solar panels in their customers’ homes.

Octopus says the deal removes a step in the process that could add up to 10 weeks to the installation.

As well as running Britain’s transmission backbone, National Grid is the distribution network operator (DNO) for the Midlands, South West England and South Wales. It invests £1 billion every year in its distribution grid.

Following discussions, NG’s DNO has also pre-approved the heat pumps installed by Octopus Energy for connection across their DNO network. The power retailer claims this potentially saves up to five weeks of delays.

The improved process builds on a similar pilot conducted last year between Octopus and UK Power Networks.

Via the 2023-2028 ED2 regulatory settlement, National Grid Electricity Distribution has committed to ensure customers are able to connect to low carbon technologies quickly and easily. Under the deal, the DNO must have its network ready by 2028 to support at least 1.5 million EV chargers and 600,000 heat pumps.

Cordi O’Hara of NGED commented:  “Over the last five years we’ve seen the number of EV chargers installed increase by eight times, and the number of heat pumps triple. These new changes to the fuse upgrade process are part of NG-ED’s commitment to make it even easier for customers to connect low carbon technologies.”

Alex Schoch, Octopus’ head of flexibility responded:  “We have shown that by working together, DNOs and installers can bring heat pumps, EVs and solar into homes faster and cheaper, turbocharging the UK’s move to an electrified future.

“By upgrading fuses alongside clean tech installations, we are not only saving NGED resources, but also giving our customers back valuable time. It’s a win-win that highlights how critical collaboration is on our path to net zero.”

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Press reports over the weekend indicated that ministers were on the cusp of dropping the so-called ‘boiler tax’.

It looms in the form of Whitehall’s imminent requirement that home heating installers match or substitute 4% of conventional gas boilers sold with sales of low carbon air- or ground-sourced pumps. If they fall short, the rules require them after April to pay £3,000 for every installation they miss under that threshold.

National take-up of the low-carbon heat systems continues to undershoot massively the government’s two year old target to have the low carbon devices installed in 600,000 homes every year by 2028.  In 2022, fewer than 10,000 of the pumps were plumbed in to British homes.

Anticipating the £3,000 penalty taking effect this spring, manufacturers and specialist installers had reportedly simply increased their prices for adding pumps to homes.

The Guardian reported last year that lobbyists for the gas boiler industry were trying to delay the new measures. Now Claire Coutinho, who became energy secretary in September, is reportedly minded to scrap the target and fines after concluding that it was bad for consumers.

“Boiler manufacturers have saddled families with indefensible price hikes – this is not right,” a government source told the Sunday Times. “We’re looking again at the policy, and expect manufacturers to do the right thing and remove their price hikes immediately.”

In September the UK’s biggest pump supplier Worcester Bosch went public on its intended rise of £300 per installation. Output capacity and homeowner demand were both running too cool to meet the government’s targets, making fines inevitable, it said.

According to the Guardian this morning, energy secretary Clare Coutinho believes ditching the policy may be the only way to get manufacturers to drop their prices again and that the government can still hit its target of 600,000 heat pumps through other schemes and incentives.

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson tells the paper that the government remains committed to its ambition of installing 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028.

“We want to do this in a way that does not burden consumers, and we’ve increased our heat pump grants by 50% to £7,500 – making it one of the most generous schemes in Europe“, the spokesperson was quoted as saying.

“This pragmatic approach is working, with a nearly 50% increase in people applying in December 2023 compared to the same month in 2022.”

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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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Credit plans removing the need for multi-thousand ££ of upfront costs for homes are the firm’s intended master stroke in its goal to wean households off carbon-heavy gas.

The firm’s chairman Harald Mix laid out Aira’s pledge to decarbonise the UK at the Global Investment Summit at Hampton Court, attended by premier Rishi Sunak.

He is the latest heat pump boss pledging to inject momentum in Britain’s sluggish uptake of air and ground-source pumps, the latter requiring excavations and new pipework.

The nation still relies on 25 million fossil fuel boilers to heat homes, together accounting for 16% of CO₂ emissions.

 Sunak’s administration remains committed under its Boiler Upgrade Scheme to ramping up heat pump installations to 600,000 annually by 2028.   Concerned that installs currently run at less than a tenth of that figure, the government earlier this year increased to £7,500 its subsidy for the new technology.

To remedy another drawback, Britain’s shortage of skilled pump installers, Aira is investing in training centres in London and in Sheffield, the latter following its purchase of All Seasons Energy.   From a current UK payroll of 200 staff, the company plans expansion so it can serve one million UK homes.

Aira’s group CEO Martin Lewerth  said: “The UK is a crucial market to decarbonise, being one of Europe’s most populated countries and with the lowest heat pump penetration rate of just 1%.

“We are confident Aira’s innovative offering, which includes substantial consumer cost savings, no need for lifestyle changes, and a zero upfront payment model, will be well-received. We are here to accelerate the important transition from dirty gas boilers to clean heat pumps.”

Daniel Särefjord, the company’s UK CEO, said: “Heat pumps are four times more energy efficient than gas boilers and will help people reduce their heating bills by 25%. The Government has confirmed that over 90% of UK homes are suitable for a heat pump.”

Energy security secretary Claire Coutinho said: ‘’Families should not have to choose between cutting costs and cutting emissions which is why we increased our Boiler Upgrade Scheme by 50% to £7,500 grants – making our scheme one of the most generous in Europe“.

’It’s fantastic that Aira is investing £300m in the UK heat pump market,” the minister continued.

“Their investment will also create 8,000 new jobs here in the UK, growing our economy and helping us make the green transition.” 

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Fully a quarter of the population believes – wrongly – that heat pumps are less efficient than gas boilers, the supplier’s survey of its customers found.  In fact, modern heat pumps achieve four times the space heating effectiveness of traditional combi-boilers.

A heat pump is louder than a fridge, according to only slightly less – 23% – of respondents. Wrong again: at maximum 45 decibels, noise from heat pumps rarely exceeds that of a fridge.

The pumps work only in newer homes, say a fifth of Brits, and don’t work at all in cold weather, in the minds of 15%, unaware that 1.4 million homes in Norway are warmed even as winter temperatures drop to 15 degrees below Zero.

Heating of homes and other buildings accounts for an estimated quarter of all the country’s carbon emissions.  The government has set 2028 as its deadline to be installing at least 600,000 domestic pumps every year.  Attempting to increase last year’s total of fewer than 50,000 instals, over the summer it stepped up to £7,500 its heat pump grant intended to lure in householders

Good Energy is launching a bespoke ‘Winter Tips’ service for its heat pump customers.  The energy supplier and installer offers remote monitoring of its devices, meaning it can identify problems as they occur.

The new Winter Tips service will provide advice and individualised data on the efficiency of customers’ installations, suggesting changes they might wish to make in their configuration so as to save energy over the colder months.

Chief executive Nigel Pocklington said: “For some unfathomable reason, heat pumps have found themselves in the front line of the culture war. As ever, truth is an early casualty.

“The constant flow of misinformation from media with poor journalistic standards, an absence of reputable data or the fingerprints of lobbyists all over them, means that the overall level of public understanding has fallen.

For more details, see here.

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The transnational nukes-to-offshore-wind combine positions itself as Britain’s biggest generator of zero carbon electricity.

Two years ago it took a minority stake in the 23-year old Clacton, Essex based ASHP-maker. Their partnership boosted CB Heating’s skilled workforce fivefold in its first year, training an extra 370 engineers.  Full ownership is expected to yield still more. The purchase price was not disclosed.

As deployment of air- and ground-sourced extractors of low carbon energy lags woefully behind the government’s target of 600,000 per year by 2028, EdF’s move coincides with D-ESNZ’s recent 50% boost to the household pump subsidy.

It now offers householders £7,500 per home ASHP installation.  Extending the Boiler Upgrade Scheme by three years until 2008 is Whitehall’s supporting incentive.

With the Future Homes Standard set to ban installation of gas boilers in new homes after 2024, and a total ban on gas boilers by 2035, both acquiror and acquiree intend today’s consolidation to slash waiting times. EDF wants these to drop by half from their current three to four months.

The deal will also see EdF putting a dedicated team in place to deliver heat pumps to homes.

A major challenge confronting the government’s overarching decarbonisation strategy is a dearth of qualified heat engineers.

According to economic consultancy Nesta, Britain needs 27,000 qualified technicians to meet that target of delivering 600,000 heat pump installations every year by 2028.   At present only 4,500 qualified installers earn a living from heat pumps in the UK,^,compared to more than 150,000 gas safe engineers.

Since August 2022, EdF’s partnership with CB Heating has aided development of the Heat Pump Installers Network (HPIN) Academy, delivering free training nationwide to upskill engineers at every level.

In consequence, heat pump installers under training have risen from 90 experts to 463 now. The Academy has capacity to train 4,000 new heat pump installers every year.

Clayton Browne, managing director of CB Heating, said: “Now we have has the resource to continue to grow our HPIN venture, already the largest network of qualified trained heat pump installers in the UK.

“We plan to train over 1,000 heat pump installers in 2024, meaning a quarter of all estimated heat pump installers in the UK will be a HPIN member.

Philippe Commaret, EdF’s managing director of customers said: “The investment we’re making in the heat pump market is representative of all the work we’re doing to help Britain achieve net zero.

EdF’s rival, Octopus, now Britain’s second-biggest energy supplier by account volume, bought Craigavon -based pump manufacturer RED in April 2022.

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The partners’ low carbon network will heat ovens and provide power for food manufacturers collocated on a  2 million square foot business campus in the east Midlands city.

Industrial cooks and food processing firms pile on the calories with their giant energy appetites. Heating and cooling, in support of prepping, storing and processing ingredients, in heating spaces and ovens and keeping their output edible, all add to food-makers’ energy girth.

SmartParc’s carbs-shedding, energy-sharing recipe is first to use wind and solar electricity within its industrial sheds to foster its food-making tenants’ sustainable production.

The Derby scheme incorporates industrial ammonia chillers and heat pumps, which will pass clean energy through 9.8km of cooling pipes across the estate. The equipment will enable a diversified cold glycol cooling duty of 11MW, at -6°C.

Next, by capturing waste heat from the refrigeration plant, clean power of up to 10MW will supply water heated to 72°C across the park.

Carbon savings approximating to 27,000 tonnes every year this decade are likely to result from the cooling loop alone.  Adding in the heat network, a further 3,500 tonnes per year is on the cards, avoided when compared to gas boilers. The upside is potentially double that total.

Though sounding daunting to lay ears, ammonia employed to chill the innovative network cannot ramp up global warming, in contrast to climate-harming synthetic hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used in conventional large-scale cooling.

Veolia designed the DerbySEGRo pipe network. The firm will operate heating, cooling and high voltage distribution across the 155-acre site. Its agreement for client SmartParc includes managing metering and billing, and round-the-clock engineering support.

John Abraham, the combine’s chief operating officer for industrial energy, observed: “Reducing the carbon footprint of food production is of key importance as we advance to Net Zero.

“Veolia’s work on this new state of the art site highlights what can be achieved today. By collaborating with food manufacturers we can implement innovative solutions that both support essential food production, and deliver major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions”.

Phil Lovell, Abraham’s equivalent at the estate developer, responded:  “SmartParc are excited to be delivering this pioneering energy solution at SmartParc SEGRO Derby, the first of its kind in the food industry.

“The heating and cooling network is a critical part of SmartParc’s sustainable, collaborative model for food production”, Lovell went on. “The pipe network and energy centre we have completed will benefit all tenants on the park, ensuring significant carbon reductions and cost savings.”

Veolia has set itself a goal to become the benchmark company for ecological transformation. Working on five continents, through its complementary work in waste, energy and water, the group designs and deploys solutions contributing to a radical turnaround of the planet’s current malaise. In 2022, the group produced 44 terawatt hours of energy and recovered 61 million tonnes of waste. It also provided 111 million people with drinking water and 97 million with sanitation.

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