Decarbonising home heating is a significant challenge on the road to net zero. The UK has some of Europe’s leakiest building stock, and around 23 million homes use a natural gas boiler. In ‘off-grid’ areas, 25% of homes depend on an oil boiler to keep warm.
Typically, home heating systems are replaced every 10-15 years, when a boiler dies or becomes impractical to repair. This means most UK households will only have two opportunities to switch to low carbon heating by 2050. The transition is multifaceted, with technological, integration, energy system, consumer and financial challenges, but the most crucial is the policy challenge to create an environment that encourages innovation in low carbon heating.
The challenge ahead
The Electrification of Heat Demonstration Project (EoH) – funded by the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero – has highlighted the challenges and consumer barriers to scaling up heat pump adoption to meet the government’s target of installing 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028. The Scottish government is targeting a peak of 250,000 renewable heat installations in the 2030s.
We have six years to increase installations from thousands to hundreds of thousands
These are ambitious goals. UK homes are host to just 280,000 heat pumps, and only 30,000 MCS-certified heat pumps were installed in 2023. We have six years to increase installations from the thousands to the hundreds of thousands. That is going to require scale and consumer-friendly offers – we are not seeing enough of them today.
Are heat pumps viable?
The EoH has shown that heat pumps are suitable for all property types and architectural eras, debunking the notion that they are only viable for new builds. The project installed 742 heat pumps in various homes across Scotland, Newcastle, and South East England.
The way heat pumps operate has also been debunked. The median seasonal performance factor observed in air source heat pump (ASHP) systems during the project was 2.80 (280%), a significant increase – of around 0.3 to 0.4 (30-40%) – since the Renewable Heat Premium Payment scheme trial was undertaken between 2011 and 2014.
Performance data on some of the UK’s coldest days (as low as -10°C) found only a marginal decline in whole system performance. The median ASHP system efficiency was 2.44 (or 244%) on the coldest days, indicating that heat pumps operate with high efficiency, even in cold weather conditions.
Consumer appetite
There is an appetite for heat pumps in the UK; the project received more than 8,000 expressions of interest from the public in our target areas. Applicants cited sustainability and low carbon heating (78%) and interest in new technology (63%) as the primary reasons for wanting to transition to a heat pump.
Despite this, data from the EoH point to two key barriers to installation that could hinder progress: cost and disruption.
- 47% of participants who opted out cited disruption as the main reason for saying no.
- The average cost per property for the installation of a heat pump was £14,800. This included additional measures such as the installation of hot water tanks and radiator upgrades, plus labour costs.
Innovation and training are critical to the success of a mass rollout of heat pumps. The project has demonstrated that the UK’s homes are heat pump-ready. We must innovate to make the customer journey as seamless as possible. From design discussion to installation and operation, the consumer must come first. Without consumer demand, we cannot hope to install 600,000 heat pumps per year.
Consumer-first
People are not yet sure about something unfamiliar. By offering well-designed services that meet consumer needs and provide comfort, the industry can make low-carbon heating solutions attractive. Innovations should cater for diverse consumer needs, from medically vulnerable individuals to economically vulnerable households.
It’s important to work with consumers, and bring them into the design and testing of the future net zero energy system. Any low carbon heating solution needs to be as good, or better than, the alternatives if we are to go at the scale and pace needed.
Fundamentally, to meet climate targets, it is essential to make switching to a heat pump as smooth a journey as possible, drive down the costs of installation, and provide a much better consumer-heating experience.
About the author
Rebecca Sweeney Business lead – home decarbonisation at Energy Systems Catapult