Industry insight
As London’s Mayor and chief executive of the Greater London Authority (GLA), Sadiq Khan, follows the Accelerated Green pathway to make London Net Zero carbon by 2030, managing director at Whitecode Consulting, Alex Hill, looks at what this pathway will mean for the city’s skyline and if it will alter beyond all recognition
A pathway to Net Zero
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heat pumps operating in the UK representing 1% of the UK’s heating technology market, and in London there were just 521 domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) applications made for air source heat pumps (ASHP) from April 2014 to November 2021. The Mayor recognised the need to drive up this
low up-take fi gure and according to the GLA’s Energy Monitoring Report (2021), in 2020 more than 10,000 new homes and 77% of non-residential fl oorspace approved for development included heat pump technology. But where will all these heat pumps go? They will be situated on the roofs of buildings changing the city skyline forever. Buildings could see one and a half stories being planned to support the plant needed to house heat pumps. Heat pumps are prohibitively expensive for many, noisy to run and the equipment is heavy. The boiler in the basement shouldn’t be scrapped, in many cases it could be utilised immediately to provide a mid-term solution that will immediately reduce carbon emissions. Many boilers are ready to run on a 20% hydrogen blend without any technical adjustments being needed. Hydrogen is a clean gas because when burned it doesn’t release carbon dioxide. Blending up to 20% hydrogen into the gas grid with existing natural gas could immediately save millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year. Installing and servicing hydrogen boilers requires a
small amount of additional training, whilst, according to The Heat Pump Association (HPA), to meet the Government’s heat pump installation target will require 44,000 qualifi ed heat pump installers, there are currently only 1,800 in the UK. Replacing a gas boiler for a hydrogen ready boiler is thought to be similar to the cost of replacing a gas boiler currently – about £2,500. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that an ASHP installation will cost about £6,000 to £8,000 and a ground source heat pump (GSHP) installation between £10,000 and £18,000. Currently there is limited domestic heat pump manufacturing capacity in the UK. According to the BEIS of the 33,600 heat pumps installed in the UK in 2019, 22,753 were imported and only 10,830 were manufactured in the UK, with the vast majority of heat pumps being produced in Asia. The carbon footprint of this ‘green’ technology will
W
hen Sadiq Khan set a target for London to be Net Zero by 2030, he commissioned experts to analyse the possible pathways
to achieve his ambitious target. The fi rst scenario and pathway (high electrifi cation) favoured electrifi cation of heat and transport; the second scenario assumed hydrogen would be available at scale in the long-term (high hydrogen). The report noted that national-level decisions on the relative roles of electrifi cation and hydrogen in the UK’s Net Zero transition strategy are not expected until the mid-2020s. The third pathway, labelled the no constraints
scenario, represented an accelerated decarbonisation pathway that introduced aggressive policies to drive the scrappage of boilers and vehicles, as a result technology options would be limited to those currently available or available by late 2020 with reliance
10 August 2022
on widespread electrifi cation. The third pathway, the Accelerated Green scenario, represented an ‘intermediate scenario’ in which London decarbonises as rapidly as possible ahead of national targets whilst leaving long-term technology options open as far as possible allowing heating systems to remain connected to a blended (hydrogen and biomethane) gas grid and a moderate share of pure hydrogen in ‘selected applications’. This option sees a signifi cant electrifi cation of the heating system but with hydrogen playing an important role at strategic sites across London. This was the option chosen by Sadiq Khan. Amongst other things, the Accelerated Green
pathway sees the need for 2.2 million heat pumps in London by 2030. According to research by the Government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, there are currently only 260,000
surely negatively impact whole life-cycle carbon (WLC) emission assessments which are set out in the London Plan (policy SI 2) as a requirement on all development proposals in the capital. The Government has committed £12 billion
nationally to support heat networks, retrofi t, heat pumps, electric vehicles and more over the next four years. This money could be invested in hydrogen technology which I believe is essential in helping the UK to meet its Net Zero emissions target. The long-term solution is green hydrogen which is made by splitting water using electricity. If the electrolysis method is powered by renewable electricity, the production method is carbon zero. Investment is needed to scale such hydrogen solutions to help achieve cost eff ective deep carbonisation. Banning the gas boiler before providing an aff ordable solution will slow down the path to Net Zero and will change London’s famed skyline forever.
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Photo: Arthur Edelmans/Unsplash
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