HEATING right repair equipment and spares.”
Nor will it be long, he continues, before a company like Worcester Bosch will be able to send an engineer out before an appliance fails, having seen from the data that it will fail in three or four weeks’ time. “That means we would be doing preventative maintenance rather than reactive, which would have huge implications for user comfort and customer service.”
All that connectivity and capability could have far reaching consequences, Arntzen continues. ”We might end up not selling the product to the customer at all. Those of us who are immersed in the industry love boilers, but the general consumer isn’t as interested and if we offered them the choice of buying heat rather than buying the white box on the wall they may well take it, in the same way that few of us actually buy our cars these days, we lease them.”
That doesn’t mean that Arntzen envisages Worcester Bosch ceasing to make boilers, rather that the ownership model might change.“What do we see in terms of decarbonisation moving forward?” he continues. “The big question for the UK heating sector is whether decarbonisation comes via the electrification of heating or
whether it comes via some other form of green gas. Increasingly, we are of the belief that electrification is not the solution for the bulk of the UK heating market. There are two or three reasons why we believe this, one is that the UK is very heavily reliant on gas right now - 85% plus of housing stock is connected to the gas supply and most of that housing stock is very old and very poorly insulated. The sale of heat pumps into old Victorian properties over the past 10 years has had limited success: a great number of properties in the UK are difficult to heat with low temperature technology and heating appliances like electric heat pumps.” He says that there is definitely a role for heat pumps in the UK, certainly, but it is more targeted towards the new house building sector.
“For the existing older structures, we need to come up with an alternative solution. The other reason feeding off the back of the poor insulation why electrification is not right for the UK is that we live on an island right next to a big ocean and we get dramatic fluctuations in ambient temperatures. Certainly they get dramatic fluctuations in Germany too, but the temperature inside German homes tends to remain the same because their properties are, on the whole, better insulated than ours.”
While Worcester Bosch thinks there will be a market for good electrical heating in the UK, Arnzten says it will be limited to major refurbishments or newer buildings: “whereas the solution for older properties is probably going to have to be some form of gas.” BMJ
WORCESTER LOOKS TO THE FUTURE ‘The Future of Fuel’ takes an in-depth look at
how the UK can successfully decarbonise heat
how the UK can successfully decarbonise heat and hot water generation without radically changing the way 85% of households heat their homes.
According to the report, decarbonising the supply running through the mains gas network would not only cost three time
only cost three times es e UK’s longstanding
less than the government’s current aim of electrification,rent aim of electrification, but would also allowt would also allow the UK’s longstanding infrastructure to remain. Consequently, UK
homeowners would avoid being forced to have a heat pump installed. The full report at: www.
worcester-bosch.co.uk
eing forced to have a omeowners would avoid onsequently, UK rastructure to remain.
worcester-bosch.co.uk he full report at: www. eat pump installed.
November 2018
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net
29
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