Heat pumps in pictures
On the basis of a picture telling a thousand words, here's a few thousand words worth...
Europe is making a big gas exit
This section and image reproduced from Agora Eenergiewende/Artelys/TEP Energy/Wuppertal Institute.
Analysis shows that fossil gas use in Europe can be halved by 2030 and completely phased out of the EU energy system by 2050 without disruptive behavioural changes in households or short-term demand destruction in industry, while fully ensuring security of supply.
Heat pumps: some facts
This section and image reproduced from Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.
The Government launched its new £450m Boiler Upgrade Scheme on 1st April 2022. The scheme will fund grants of £5,000 towards air source boilers and £6,000 for ground source heat pumps.
The UK has a target to install 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028, and one third of the British public would be likely to get one to avoid importing any gas from Russia.
France has increasing numbers of installs at over 8.6 million in 2020, an increase of over 3.9 million since 2015.
So, why are governments across Europe turning to heat pumps as the next evolution in domestic heating?
Heat pumps are good for older properties too
This section and image reproduced from Nesta.
Heat pumps are likely to be effective across the range of residential property types in Britain.
Source: Heat pumps user servey, Nesta (2023)
Heat pump users are generally satisfied
This section and image reproduced from Nesta.
Heat pump users report high levels of overall satisfaction overall, with over 70% of respondents either ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with 8 of the 10 key attributes.
Source: Heat pumps user servey, Nesta (2023). Image: Guardian.
The Nordics are showing the way, but Britain is w-a-a-y behind
This section and image reproduced from Statista.
In 2022, the Nordic countries had the highest number of heat pump sales per household in Europe.
The United Kingdom was the only country in the list without actual numbers, but an estimate calculated by industry experts, according to whom there were just over two heat pumps sold in the UK for every thousand households.
Britain needs to get moving
This section and image reproduced from MCS Charitable Foundation.
A range of regulatory, policy and social changes are needed over a long period of time if the UK is to reproduce the success of the heat pump rollout in France.
Seems to be plenty of private investment going on, though…
The UK heat pump market is estimated to be worth £1bn by 2030 and the heat pump manufacturers here are certainly making investment.
Kensa is investing £70mn, with the bulk coming from Octopus Energy and L&G to manufacture 50,000 ground source heat pumps by 2030 and will be responsible for generating 7,000 jobs in total. Meanwhile, Ideal is investing £60mn to produce 60,000 heat pumps per year and also a further £2mn in a training centre to cater for 5,000 trainees per year; Vaillant is investing £1.7bn in its European operations and extending its Slovakia factory’s output to 300,000 heat pumps per year, and raising its output to 500,000 per year
