New Heat Pump Guide to support UK Industry

New Heat Pump guide to support UK Industry

SOME OF the UK’s most experienced clean energy experts have joined forces to create a new guide for domestic heat pump installers. This new heat pump guide creates a single source of best practice guidance to support the UK heat pump industry.

The Guide has been collaboratively crafted by MCS in partnership with Renewable Energy Consumer Code (RECC), Energy Saving Trust and Heat Pump Association (HPA). It streamlines advice by providing a single source of best practice on technical guidance and consumer protection.

Published this week, it is designed to support heat pump installers solve technical and contractual problems. With it, installers can easily deploy best practice solutions and processes in a compliant and legal way. It sits alongside the MCS Heat Pump Standard and will support MCS certified installers with every aspect of the design, installation and commissioning of heat pumps.

The transformation of domestic energy will play a significant role in achieving 2050 net zero targets with heat pumps playing an increasingly important role in delivering low carbon domestic heat. Publication of the Guide is timely in light of Government’s low carbon heat spending announcements last week.

Ian Rippin, CEO of MCS said: “With the market for heat pumps likely to grow significantly, it is important that consumers have confidence in the products that will be installed into their home. Building consumer confidence in low-carbon heat is critical to aiding market growth. Building that trust depends on both technical expertise and contractual best practice. So, we welcome this new Guide which provides all this support to installers in one place.”

The contractual section of the guide examines every aspect of the consumer journey with a focus on the performance claims that underpin contract agreements. It was written by consumer protection specialists who have audited hundreds of companies installing small-scale renewable heat technologies.

Virginia Graham, CEO of RECC said: “Designing and installing heat pumps systems requires considerable skill. Providing consumers with accurate information about an unfamiliar heating technology is vital but challenging. So, I am delighted that installers can now find accessible guidance on the whole process in one place. I commend it to our members.”

Mike Thornton, CEO of Energy Saving Trust said: “If government plans for decarbonising heat are to be realised then there will need to be a significant increase in low carbon and renewable heat options including heat pumps. However, it is vitally important that these technologies are installed effectively so the benefits for the end users including householders can be realised. We believe the application of this guide will go a significant way to ensuring this happens and we encourage all suppliers to use it”.

The Heat Pump Guide is now available in the Standards and Tools Library online, www.mcscertified.com

Heat Pump Association reacts to Chancellor’s Summer Statement

The Heat Pump Association has welcomed Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Summer Statement, which looks set to build on promises that the UK will continue to invest in green technology in an effort to reduce greenhouse emissions in social housing and the public sector. However, the HPA believes the UK is still at risk of falling short if some crucial details are not clarified.

On 8th July, the Chancellor delivered his Summer Statement setting out a package of measures to support the economy as the UK seeks to recover from the impact of COVID-19. Mr Sunak emphasised the importance of improving the energy efficiency of homes and reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

A £2 billion Green Homes Grant will be introduced to help homeowners and landlords make their homes more efficient. Vouchers offered will cover at least two-thirds of the cost, up to £5,000 per household. For the worst off, the scheme will cover the full cost of energy efficiency measures up to £10,000 per household.

The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, a £50 million pilot scheme, is aimed at helping social landlords improve the least energy-efficient social rented properties to help create warmer homes and lower annual energy bills for some of the lowest income households.

Graham Wright, Chairman of the HPA, said: “There is a lot of detail to iron out here, however, it appears there is something for landlords, homeowners and those who campaign on behalf of low-income households. Although the amount of money is smaller than that promised for Home Upgrade Grants in the manifesto, it is being brought forwards and should be spent sooner with bigger impact than the sector could have hoped for.”

In addition to the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, a Clean Growth Strategy sets out the government’s ambition to halve greenhouse gas emissions from the public sector by 2032. To help achieve this and support economic recovery, the government will invest £1 billion over the next year in a Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme that will offer grants to public sector bodies, including schools and hospitals, to fund both energy efficiency and low carbon heat upgrades.

In response Graham Wright added: “The amount of funding here is significant. With Local Authorities and other public bodies engaged in a race to declare a climate emergency in recent years, I would expect strong interest in funding that could be used to achieve these ambitions. It will be interesting to see how this funding could be combined, for example with Renewable Heat Incentive payments or the Heat Networks Investment Project.”

Heating Industry Coalition Consults on Qualification Criteria for Installers of Low Carbon Heating Systems

A Coalition of Heating Industry bodies with particular interests in Low Carbon Heating Systems today published two consultations on qualification criteria for low carbon heating system training courses.

The first consultation is for the criteria that should apply to training courses for all forms of Low Temperature Heating Systems – widely regarded as necessary, both to allow a future market transformation into systems such as Heat Pumps, but also to ensure the most efficient performance is obtained for modern gas condensing boilers.

The second consultation is for the specific criteria that should apply to training courses specifically for Heat Pumps – which operate at greater efficiencies when able to heat customer’s homes at lower system operating temperatures.

Installers are invited to take part in both consultations:

Both consultations have a deadline of 17:00, 30 June 2020.

Notes:

The Committee on Climate Change has recommended that a widespread transformation from boilers to heat pumps and other low carbon heating systems will need to take place in the next 10-15 years; the industry bodies backing these criteria consider them essential to ensuring sufficient heating engineers are equipped with the necessary training and skills to bring about a challenging, but achievable acceleration of low carbon heating.

The criteria for the generic Low Temperature Heating course have been developed by the Chartered Institute of Heating and Plumbing Engineers, and for the Heat Pump course, by the Heat Pump Association, both in wide consultation with manufacturers, and other industry bodies.

The CIPHE and HPA will collate the responses for each set of criteria respectively, and finalise the criteria before submitting to Ofqual for approval and inclusion in the relevant Competent Persons Schemes. It is expected the first training courses being run to these criteria will be available by the end of 2020.

Heat Pump Association launches Training Strategy amidst growing calls for a ‘green recovery’

The Heat Pump Association (HPA) today launched a Training Strategy that lays out how the heating industry needs to transform to enable the wider adoption of heat pumps throughout the UK building stock.

The upskilling of heating installers provides the potential for long-term job growth at the same time as helping to achieve net zero emissions; something that could form an important part of a ‘green recovery’.

The Strategy contains five clear steps for how a plumbing and heating engineer can be trained to meet the new challenges we face in trying to achieve the UK goal of a zero carbon future, reducing administration cost, and recommending to government that they support a training voucher scheme for the first 5,000 installers to go through the new course. The Strategy comes at the same time two industry-wide consultationsare published on qualification criteria for training courses.

“The Committee on Climate Change has made clear that we need to move to heat pumps taking over from gas boilers as the default replacement heating system within the next 10-15 years. This is ambitious, but entirely achievable if we move now to retrain and up-skill a market that already exists of around 120,000 existing heating engineers. The role of installers cannot be underestimated in decarbonising heat. The Strategy we are launching today, together with the consultations on qualification criteria released earlier this week, are key steps towards achieving this and provide the potential for green jobs as we look to recover from the current crisis.”

Notes:

The Training Strategy paper ‘Building the Installer Base for Net Zero Heating’ can be found Here.

The HPA represents the significant majority of volume manufacturers of heat pumps in the UK (over 80% of the market). The Association works closely with its membership to support policymakers in the development of effective heat decarbonisation policy and other matters that affect the interests of end users, wider stakeholders, and the industry.

In November 2019, the HPA launched ‘Net Zero: A Roadmap for the Role of Heat Pumps’ which identified training and skills as a key enabler for the decarbonisation of heat through heat pumps.

Today’s Strategy paper, and consultations released earlier this week, bring substance to that.

Timetable is for Course Criteria to be submitted to Ofqual following consultation; first training courses expected to be up and running by the end of 2020.

Industry Welcomes Government’s Proposed Grants Scheme for Heat Pumps

Industry welcomes Governments proposed Grants Scheme for Heat Pumps

The Heat Pump Industry has warmly welcomed the Government consultation on Future Support for Low Carbon Heat⁽¹⁾, published yesterday, and in particular the proposal to make grants of £4,000 available for consumers wishing to replace fossil fuel boilers with Heat Pumps.

Chairman of the Heat Pump Association (HPA), Graham Wright, said:

“We are pleased the Government is proposing this important step to decarbonise the way we heat our homes, and thank the Minister, the Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng MP, and his civil servants, for their constructive engagement with the HPA, and for developing these policy proposals on the basis of sound evidence and economic analysis. We are particularly pleased that the Government has quoted our recent Industry Roadmap, published last November, within the consultation, and has adopted our proposal for a £4,000 grant per customer, to support heat pump uptake⁽²⁾.

“The Committee on Climate Change has made it clear that the most cost-effective way for the heat sector to deliver the country’s legally binding carbon targets, is to ensure all new heating systems from 2035 are low carbon⁽³⁾. Yesterday’s publication is an important first step in delivering that critical market transformation.

“Although there is further dialogue to be had during and after the consultation period, particularly on whether the overall levels of funding are sufficient to deliver the required growth, and ensuring that alternative policy support is developed for larger heat pump installations, today’s announcement is a most welcome step in the right direction.”

References:
(1) “Future Support for Low Carbon Heat”, Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/881622/future-support-for-low-carbon-heat-consultation.pdf

(2) “Delivering Net Zero: A Roadmap For the Role of Heat Pumps”, Heat Pump Association.

http://hpa-bye-bye-divi.localwp-content/uploads/2019/11/A-Roadmap-for-the-Role-of-Heat-Pumps.pdf

(3) p200, “Net Zero – the UK’s Contribution to Stopping Global Warming”. The Committee on Climate Change.

https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/net-zero-the-uks-contribution-to-stopping-global-warming/

Notes:

The Government published a consultation on 28th April 2020 on the Future Support for Low Carbon Heat, which includes a proposal to award a £4,000 up-front grant to customers installing heat pumps to replace fossil fuel combustion heating from April 2022, when the current (extended) Renewable Heat Incentive scheme closes.
The Heat Pump Association (HPA) represents the significant majority of volume manufacturers of Heat Pumps in the UK (over 80% of the market).
In November 2019, the HPA published “Net Zero: A Roadmap for the Role of Heat Pumps”, which included proposals for an up-front grant of £4,000 per customer, to replace the current Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme, and that this should act as a bridge to Regulatory measures to drive the decarbonisation of home heating. The
HPA sees this as an important step towards Heat Pumps replacing around 1 million fossil fuel boilers per year by 2030.
Over the past 18 months, the HPA has been at the forefront of the Industry’s engagement with Government, and has provided with extensive evidence, modelling, and views on the best policy framework to ensure the most effective route to heat pumps taking over from fossil fuel boilers as the principal replacement
heating technology in homes over the course of the next decade.

Chancellor’s Budget is just the beginning for heat pump industry, says HPA Chairman

The Heat Pump Association has welcomed the Chancellor’s Budget, announced on 11th March 2020, which sets out solid plans to fund the replacement of fossil fuel heating and invest in low carbon heating, but warns there is still much work to do in order to meet the net zero carbon emissions target.

The Chancellor’s Budget statement confirmed the following funding commitments for Low Carbon Heat:

To introduce a levy on gas suppliers to support green gas injection to the grid. This will accelerate the decarbonisation of the UK’s gas supply, by increasing the proportion of biomethane in the grid. This is expected to be implemented in autumn 2021. The Government expects these costs to be passed onto gas bill payers. The expected impact is relatively small; around £1 a year on the average household energy bill, rising to around £5 by 2025; that’s c.0.5% of an average household’s dual fuel bill. The Government will implement a robust cost control framework, which includes an annual budget cap to ensure impacts on bills do not rise unexpectedly;

£100 million of exchequer funding in total for 2022/23 and 2023/24 for grant-funding for households and small non-domestic buildings, to install heat pumps, or biomass in limited circumstances, to replace fossil fuel heating. This will form part of government action to help build supply chains ahead of future measures to phase out high carbon heating; and

£270m for a Green Heat Network Fund to run from 2022 to 2025, to follow on from the Heat Network Investment Project. This new targeted fund will ensure that heat networks adopt the most cost-effective low carbon heat sources and will avoid locking in gas generation in the sector.

Ahead of these schemes being established, the Budget announcement has confirmed that the Government will:

Extend the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (DRHI) for a year in 2021/22, maintaining support for heat pumps, biomass and solar thermal; and

Introduce a third allocation of Tariff Guarantees under the Non-domestic RHI (NDRHI). These will be available for all technologies that have been eligible for the previous two allocations.

Graham Wright, Chairman of the HPA, said: “This is exactly the type of pro-active investment we need to see from government if we are serious about meeting the aim for net zero carbon emissions by 2050. We have frequently stated that the low carbon heating technology is there and available, but only with the right policies, investment and awareness will we see the major uptake required. However, this is just the beginning. Industry must also fulfil its commitment to producing sufficient heat pumps, in both quality AND quantity, and working with government to ensure the installer base has the necessary skills to install them correctly.”

Heat pump success at IoR dinner

Heat pump related work dominated the awards at the annual Institute of Refrigeration dinner in London.

The J&E Hall award, which recognises the most noteworthy practical contribution in the field of refrigeration, air conditioning or heat pumps, was won by Dave Pearson of Glasgow-based Star Renewable Energy for his work in the development of industrial scale heat pumps.

The Lightfoot Medal for the best IoR talk and paper, as voted by members, was awarded jointly to consultants Andrew Gigiel and Chris Jessop for their presentation Why don’t people install heat pumps?.

The Ted Perry Student Research Award was this year won by Qi Xu of the University of Nottingham for her research on an innovative heat pump – The EcoPump.

Stepping up to the decarbonisation challenge: Heat Pump Association launches vision report

The Heat Pump Association (HPA) has launched its vision report; ‘Delivering Net Zero: A Roadmap for the Role of Heat Pumps. The report, available to download from our resources page, outlines the heat pump industry’s commitment and readiness to step up to the challenge of delivering the necessary decarbonisation of heat through the scaling up of heat pump deployment.

The industry’s efforts to establish wide-scale deployment of heat pumps in the UK will be delivered through three key pillars:

Putting the consumer at the heart of change
Upskilling the installer base to create a cohort of highly skilled low-carbon heat installers
Working with government to ensure a supportive policy mix

The decarbonisation of heat is a key priority following the government’s announcement that the UK will become the first major nation to commit to reaching a net-zero carbon emissions target by 2050. The report demonstrates the vast carbon savings that heat pumps can achieve immediately, that will be vital to avoiding the worst consequences of the climate crisis. The question of how we are going to decarbonise the heating of buildings in the future is of huge interest to designers, occupiers and installers. The roadmap presented in the report offers a large part of the answer to this.

Emissions through the burning of fossil fuels will not fall unless low-carbon heating systems are attractive to consumers, either by improving comfort levels or saving them money. The vision report enforces a message to consumers that heat pump technology can help to address other policy issues such as fuel poverty and air quality.

Installers will play a vital role in raising awareness among potential customers but there is an urgent need for trained and skilled technicians to be able to design, install and operate heat pump systems properly. Over the coming months, the HPA will work with other leading organisations to roll out a programme of training that will take existing heating engineers through the whole process of designing, installing and maintaining efficient low-carbon heating systems.

The report also calls for strong government leadership at both local and national levels and highlights the work the HPA carries out in consulting with all stakeholders to develop effective policy on the regulatory framework for the future of heating buildings to phase out high carbon fossil fuels.

Graham Wright, Chairman of the HPA, said: “The heating industry has been one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions and we now find ourselves at a pivotal moment as we look to decarbonise our heating supply. The HPA believes that there is a huge opportunity for the country to embrace heat pump technology at this time, and we want to re-emphasise the fact that heat pumps provide strong carbon savings now that will only increase further in the future.

“However, the successful widespread adoption of heat pumps relies on the industry stepping up to help shape strong government policy, education and consumer acceptance. This report will act as a roadmap in how we can achieve these goals and help the UK achieve the net-zero carbon emissions target.”

Heating Installers Have Their Say

Heating installers have their say

To tackle climate change, the UK has a legal commitment for carbon emissions to be net zero by 2050. This means that high carbon fossil fuels currently used to heat our buildings will need to be replaced with low carbon fuels and technologies. In order to be successful, it will be vital that those working in the industry are a contributory part of this change.

The HPA and other industry member organisations launched a survey, and supported by government, gave installers, plumbers and heating engineers an opportunity to share their views to help ensure Government understands the opportunities and risks that installers face in the transition to low carbon heating and the challenge of communicating the necessary changes to households and consumers.

Key findings included:

90% of respondents work in organisations with less than 10 people and 48% are sole traders.
A large proportion of respondents were from an older demographic: 82% of respondents were aged 41 or over and 58% were 51 or over.
74% of installers do not rate themselves as very confident in recommending and choosing the best low carbon options to their customers.
Just 11.5% of respondents have customers who frequently ask about low carbon heating, renewable energy, or carbon emissions, while 69% say that they are either rarely or never asked.
Factors that installers rate as very important in influencing the decision to retrain are obligatory training for organisation membership (58%), new mandatory installation standards (50%), future mandatory installation standards (42%) and demand from customers (38%).
Installers believe the best way to increase awareness about the need for renewable heating systems is through communications and marketing.
Nearly half (41%) of the installers surveyed said that they understand what moving away from high carbon technologies means for their job, but more still needs to be done to raise awareness among installers.

A link to a summary of the survey data is available here

Heat pump industry rises to meet Manchester’s low carbon challenge

Reducing or eliminating domestic carbon emissions will involve transforming the UK’s entire housing stock through a combination of improved insulation, behavioural change and a reduction in the use of carbon intensive heating. For Manchester and the wider city region, this equates to retrofitting up to 1.2 million properties, while ensuring that new homes are built to the highest possible standard.

Working with Manchester City Council, Manchester Climate Change Agency and wider stakeholders, Low Carbon Homes opens on the 14th November at Manchester’s Friends Meeting House to tackle the particular challenges of retrofit across the city region.

A major new feature of the free-to-attend event is Heat Pump Focus – an event within an event – in which heat pump associations, manufacturers, system designers and installers will demonstrate the role of heat pumps in helping Manchester meet its 2038 zero carbon ambition.

This week, the UK Government issued a consultation on their proposed Future Homes

Standard, involving a major review of Building Regulations, which affect how new homes are specified and constructed. A further consultation is anticipated soon to address the more complicated issue of existing homes. The current consultation proposes that widespread use of energy efficient technology is deployed to reduce the carbon impact of domestic heating, (which accounts for 17% of UK emissions) including heating system design suitable for heat pumps.

Although not a new technology, heat pumps (which can be up to four times more efficient than conventional electric or gas heating, emitting up to three times less carbon than gas combination boilers) have not been widely adopted in the UK for various historic reasons but are widely adopted in other North European Countries such as Sweden, Estonia, Finland and Norway.

With the industry assembled on 14th November, Heat Pump Focus provides a unique opportunity for housing professionals to explore and better understand the benefits of heat pumps – at all scales of development – from individual properties to heat networks, and how to utilise the natural thermal energy stored in ground, air and water.

Presentations and Q&A sessions will cover technology fit, current policy and longer-term direction of the heat pump industry in pursuit of net zero. Heat Pump Focus contributors include HPA, GSHPA, NIBE Energy Systems, Vaillant, Infinitas Design, Kensa Contracting, Star Renewable Energy, LG and Daikin.

More information can be found here