It comes after Labour last month ditched plans for an outright ban on new gas boilers despite ‘net zero’ targets.
The previous government had planned to ban the sale of ‘polluting’ boilers from 2035. The policy was initially floated by Boris Johnson and later backed by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak as part of measures to hit Britain’s ‘green’ targets and drive the switch to heat pumps.
In June, however, Ed Miliband, now the Energy Secretary, said that Labour would first have to prove that green technology is “affordable and going to work for people”.
In a turnaround, households will still be allowed to replace existing boilers with gas ones from 2035.
Heat pump uptake is well below government targets, despite the energy department upping the grant offered to households installing a heat pump from £5,000 to £7,500.
It was hoped the Boiler Upgrade Scheme would help install 50,000 heat pumps between May 2022 and December 2023, but fewer than half that number were installed.
Consumers have been put off by warnings that heat pumps only work in homes with modern insulation, and are ill-suited to older properties.
Heat pumps are powered by electricity and currently used by only one percent of households, according to charity Nesta.
Like all heating systems, they are designed to function at temperatures as cold as -3C, under guidelines set out by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE).
Editor’s note: heat pumps are designed to work down to -3C, so what happens if the temperature drops below that, like in Scotland for example? This suggests they won’t work at all.
But Bean Beanland, of the Heat Pump Federation, suggested CIBSE’s recommendations “may need a review in light of potentially greater seasonal swings in the UK”.
He said homeowners themselves were responsible for selecting a heat pump that “could meet what they want to be able to achieve in their home”.
He added:
“For example, older residents or those with health vulnerabilities, may want higher internal temperatures, say 23C.”
Though heat pumps are typically more expensive to run in the winter months, Mr Beanland said:
“In the shoulder months of the year, spring and autumn, when the air temperature is above, say, 10C, the efficiency of the heat pump is much higher”.
The Energy Department acknowledged the gap in efficiency between heat pumps and gas boilers in a report published in December.
It said the coefficient of performance (Cop), the measure of a heat pump’s efficiency, “reduced as the external temperature also reduced”, and that “this effect was much more significant across the stock of air-source heat pumps when compared with the stock of ground-source heat pumps.”
A government spokesman said:
“We do not recognise these speculative and misleading figures. Heat pumps are three times more efficient than gas boilers on average, and still over two-and-a-half times more efficient at -5C.
We are making them more affordable to more households by providing £7,500 towards the cost, enabling families to save around £100 a year compared to a gas boiler by using a smart tariff effectively.”
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Howdy
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From a page on how heat pumps work:
“The second phase of its journey is a trip through the compressor. The compressor squeezes the refrigerant into a smaller volume, increasing its pressure and boiling point (this will become important in a minute). This also warms it further, so by the time the refrigerant is past the compressor, it’s warmer than the room indoors. ”
So rather than just a heat pump, it’s a heat generator by virtue of the compressor.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/14/1068582/everything-you-need-to-know-about-heat-pumps/
What I found interesting, is that many heat pump installations need a backup heat source in case it gets too low a temp and the pump can’t hack it. Why do low carbon products allways have to rely on the one thing they are meant to replace? That alone tells the truth of the matter.
Imagine if the grand solar minimum bites and the pumps won’t be enough…
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John V
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I have a heat pump, and I hate it. But, that’s what install with these homes here in AZ. I had Natural Gas in Illinois and my heating costs were peanuts compared to using a heat pump in the winter. And yes, it gets into the 30s at night here in the desert in December and January.
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Copernicus
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Transferring heat to and from the outside air is ridiculously inefficient compared to using the earth (ground) as a heat-source/heat-sink, especially in very hot or very cold weather. The ground has much higher heat capacity compared to the air, and maintains a constant temperature year round, unlike the air.
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