AIR SOURCE & GROUND SOURCE HEAT PUMPS
How networked heat pumps can grow the UK’s economy
Decarbonising heat is one of the biggest challenges the UK faces in its journey to Net Zero. The Government plans to phase out gas boilers in new build homes from 2025, but with roughly 78% of the population currently reliant on gas to provide their heat, and some 36,484 plumbing and heating installation businesses operating across the country, many fear a future ‘total gas boiler ban’ being put in place without a realistic, reliable and accessible alternative. James Standley, COO of The Kensa Group offers some insight
T
he Heat & Building’s Strategy published in 2021 highlighted electrically powered heat pumps as key to achieving the net zero target and within it, the Government set an ambitious
target of 600,000 heat pump installations per year by 2028. Heat pumps efficiently extract and utilise renewable energy from their surroundings (ground, water or air), and emit no point-of-use emissions or pollution as they do not burn anything. They are also highly efficient and consume around a third of the energy of a gas boiler for the same heat output. However, a political briefing highlighted by
Greenpeace noted that in the UK only 1.3 heat pumps is sold per 1,000 households with between 30,000 to 40,000 pumps installed each year. To get from the current situation to 600,000 installations a year, the existing market is going to require a massive upscale in the adoption of the technology over the next five years. However, the good news is that the benefits that heat pumps can bring are magnified when they are introduced at scale. Also, the exponential growth of the heat pump market on this scale presents clear opportunities for businesses throughout the supply chain.
Growing the Green economy
The evidence suggests that switching to a low carbon green economy will deliver sustainable financial stability, opportunity and resilience for the UK. Research shows that the adoption of low-carbon heating technologies, energy efficiency measures and the shift towards low- carbon fuels can lead to positive impacts on the economy, with a £6.8bn increase in GDP predicted in 2030.
As heat pumps become the default choice, the workforce will also need to be scaled up in the transition to a low carbon future. Certainly, a community-wide network of skilled installers will be needed on the frontlines to deliver 600,000 heat pump installations per year.
Analysis by the Heat Pump Association suggests that we will need at least 50,200 installers by 2030, based on the deployment of one million heat pumps; if this supported heat pumps manufactured in the UK a further 15,000 (high paid) jobs would be created. The UK job creation opportunity is increased when ground source pumps in particular are installed with the creation of up to 25,000 additional jobs in infrastructure provision. Unlocking the widespread adoption of heat pumps at a scale requires the wholescale upskilling of plumbers and heating engineers to the different nuances of renewable heating devices. There may be a skills gap, but this is easily surmountable; all current renewable heating and gas installers have valuable transferable knowledge and now is the ideal time to upskill.
Stimulating the heat pump market
Current heat pump subsidies are geared towards incentivising one-off heat pump installations in individual homes and we are not going to achieve the necessary market growth with this focus.
One solution is to take responsibility away
from householders to switch their boilers to one that introduces a large-scale network of ground source heat pumps similar to the design and infrastructure of the current gas grid. This approach has the promise to be a mass market and mass scale solution which if adopted, could transform our low carbon landscape and accelerate Net Zero ambitions. It’s a bold idea but one that manufacturers, the government and the energy sector are exploring with one study predicting a move to networked heat pumps could save the UK an estimated £1bn a year to 2050. By shifting the emphasis from consumers getting rid of their boilers and installing individual infrastructure for ground source heat pumps on an ad-hoc house-by-house basis, a move to a pre-installation of utility-scale underground infrastructure (how the gas grid works today), the 600,000 annual heat pump target could be met. With the infrastructure funded, owned and maintained by a utility supplier or local authority for example, the cost is removed from consumers who can then easily and cheaply change to a heat pump as and when they’re ready and pay a standing charge similar to what they do for their existing gas supply. If this infrastructure is already provided,
26 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER MARCH 2023
then plumbing and heating engineers could install ground source heat pumps on a neighbourhood scale, without involvement with the ambient loop infrastructure, just as they have no involvement in the supply of the gas network.
The need for action is critical
The challenge is how we make this a reality at scale because we need action to start soon. There are around 28 million homes in the UK currently on gas, with more boilers being installed every day. An average household gas boiler emits greenhouse gases equivalent to approximately 2.2 tonnes of CO2 per year. We only have 27 years until the UK has pledged to be net zero carbon. To achieve this target, we’d have to decarbonise roughly 20,000 homes per week. Kensa recommends a street-by-street
approach using networked heat pumps, shared ground arrays, split ownership and financing as the lowest overall system cost transition to zero carbon heating. This vision is unlocked via a series of actions from various stakeholders including central Government; local Government; the finance industry and the heat pump industry itself. You can read more about Kensa’s vision online and access a route map to a financially viable consumer and householder proposition that could be subsidy free by 2030.
Read the latest at:
www.bsee.co.uk
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