01 02 2024

The UK is lagging behind the rest of the world in adopting the green tech, but with new gas boilers to be phased out by 2035, what’s it like for the early adopters?

Christine Douglas hates her heat pump. “It’s been a nightmare,” said the 59-year-old from the Nottinghamshire village of Collingham.

“Two winters with temperatures indoors often stuck at 15.5C — I have been bitterly cold, mentally and physically distressed, and significantly out of pocket from high electricity bills.”

Love them or hate them, heat pumps are here to stay. On Thursday, as part of a revamped energy security policy, ministers nailed their colours to the mast: new gas boilers will be phased out by 2035. In the war over what will replace them, heat pumps have come out on top. “People’s homes will be heated by British electricity, not imported gas,” according to the new strategy document.

The gas boilers that fire up in 25 million British homes every day produce about a fifth of our national greenhouse gas emissions.

Heat pumps work differently, operating like reverse air-conditioners to take heat from the air, ground or a water source and using it to warm radiators, underfloor heating systems and water for showers and taps.

Crucially, this heat is clean. As long as the electricity used to power heat pumps comes from truly green sources, water is the only by-product.

They have had a bad press, however, and are widely viewed as expensive, inefficient and suitable only for modern eco-homes. Since last May, the government has offered a £5,000 voucher towards the cost of an air-source heat pump or £6,000 for a ground-source heat pump. Only 60,000 were installed last year.

Gas boilers, meanwhile, have not diminished in popularity, with 1.7 million installed every year.

The grant scheme was last week extended until 2028 but the target of 600,000 new heat pump installations a year by then — and 1.9 million by 2035 — seems a long way off.

It is a far cry from the situation in other countries. In a 2022 league table of heat-pump installations in 17 European countries, Britain came last, with two new pumps for every 1,000 homes. Finland came top, with 69 per 1,000, closely followed by Norway and Sweden. Heat-pump sales last year overtook those of gas boilers in France and the US, according to a report published by the International Energy Agency.

Dr Jan Rosenow, of the Regulatory Assistance Project, says this serves to debunk one of the great myths about heat pumps. “There is an idea that heat pumps don’t work in cold climates, but more than half the households in Norway have one.”

Taylor agrees that has been his experience in the Derbyshire Dales. “We have had some cold weather this winter, minus 7C, minus 8C. And all the heat pump does is work harder.”

A government-funded study published last year suggests his experience is common. Researchers tested the performance of heat pumps in 742 homes, from flats to detached houses and from those built before 1919 to those constructed in the 21st century. It found no house type was unsuitable.

Other changes were required, though. Because heat pumps usually run at about 50C — compared with gas boilers, which heat water to 75C — larger radiators are often recommended. Of the households with heat pumps that took part in the study, 93 per cent had installed larger radiators.

A further hurdle is that heat pumps require a water tank. But many householders have removed their water tanks in recent decades and installed modern combi-boilers. About 81 per cent of those in the study needed a new water cylinder when they got their heat pump.

A separate study, carried out by Octopus Energy, found that 17 per cent of the nation’s homes are suitable for a heat-pump with no additional work at all. For these homes, the cost of an air-source heat pump is as little as £8,000. After the £5,000 government voucher is applied, it brings the price down to £3,000 — little more than the price of a gas boiler.

Another 50 per cent of homes could be fitted with a heat pump for just £500 of additional costs, such as minor insulation, or buying a more expensive heat pump model to work with modern narrow-bore water pipes. All in all, 67 per cent of the nation’s homes could be fitted with a heat pump for less than £3,500 after the voucher is applied.

That leaves about 19 per cent of homes that have no water tank and no space for one, and 14 per cent that are flats, where it would be difficult to install a pump.

So if heat pumps are so flexible, if the technology is coming along so quickly, why do they remain unpopular?

• How to install a heat pump at home

Taylor believes it is a question of confidence — and he says rip-off merchants do not help matters. “There are some real cowboys out there,” he said. “Someone quoted me £6,000 for nine new radiators,” he said. “I bought them myself for £1,000 from Screwfix and paid £600 for the plumber to install them. You have to be really careful.”

Christine Douglas, from Nottinghamshire, says the heat pump in her bungalow has proved costly

Douglas’s ground-source heat pump came pre-installed with her newbuild bungalow and is too small to heat the property. “It was undersized by at least 30 per cent,” she said. As a result, the central heating struggles to get the radiators up to temperature and her energy bills have been twice that of her neighbours. She is in a dispute with the developer and contractors who fitted it.

She cannot even rip out her heat-pump system and install a boiler because a new gas connection would cost a fortune.

Douglas warns others to ensure the specification is correct and the installation is done by a company approved by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme. “Despite the nightmare, I still believe firmly in ground-source heat pumps,” she said.

Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, believes some people’s bad experiences will become rarer as more dedicated installers are trained and consumers become more acquainted with the technology.

Any heat pump less than one metre from a boundary requires planning consent, which can take two months or more. Manufacturers say the rule, introduced to tackle noise, is based on old models and that modern heat pumps are no louder than a fridge.

Most people think about getting a new heating system when their old one breaks down. But if they have to wait two months, most simply buy a new gas boiler.

Sir John Armitt, chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, believes the technology will only take off if it is made convenient and cheap.

“It just seems a hard choice to make — to go for new technology that is going to require quite a capital investment when you’ve still got that simple solution of sticking with what you know,” he said.

At the moment high gas prices mean running a heat pump is cheaper than running a boiler. But with gas prices set to come down in the coming months, that position could soon be reversed. With that in mind, the government is consulting on removing green levies of roughly £100 a year from electricity bills, and placing them onto gas bills instead.

Even with government vouchers, the initial outlay is still too expensive for many people. The government is banking on the cost of heat pumps coming down by between 25 and 50 per cent by 2025. But a new report by the UK Energy Research Centre suggests this is overly optimistic, and the cost of a new heat pump is unlikely to decrease by more than 20 to 25 per cent before 2030.

If heat pumps are not made cheaper, easier and more convenient to install — if the transition, in other words, is not made seamless — it will only be the early adopters, the environmentally conscious citizens such as John Taylor and Christine Douglas, who will continue to make the leap to this green technology