Your guide to heat pumps
With energy bills rising due to the gas crisis, and the need to find smarter ways to heat our homes, heat pumps have been hitting the headlines. You might be wondering what exactly they are, what support is available to help you get one, and how they help take us forward on climate change.
We're here to straighten this all out for you.
What are heat pumps? How do they work?
A heat pump is a clean replacement for a gas boiler, powered by electricity rather than directly burning fossil fuels. Heat pumps are super efficient, and ready to heat our homes without heating the planet.
Heat pumps don’t generate heat - instead they extract ambient heat naturally stored in the air or the ground, pressurise it to increase the temperature, then pump it to radiators to heat our homes. Air-source heat pumps are the most common type, drawing ambient heat from the air using a fan - while ground-source heat pumps use pipes buried underground to pull heat from the earth. Importantly, both work during the winter months!
The potential of this amazing technology is already being recognised in Western Europe, with both France and Sweden already installing 1 million heat pumps in homes.
Why are heat pumps good for the climate?
Heat pumps have the potential to be run solely on renewable electricity, which means they offer the possibility of zero carbon heating. Recently the government committed to a carbon-free UK electricity grid by 2035.
Heat pumps are extremely efficient. For every unit of electricity you give to a heat pump, it produces 2-4 units of heat energy! This makes heat pumps up to four times more efficient than outdated and dirty gas boilers.
Currently, 17 million UK homes are still reliant on fossil fuel guzzling gas boilers, which emit twice as many carbon emissions as every gas fired power station in the UK combined.
Unsurprisingly then, heating buildings with fossil fuels is a massive contributor to UK carbon emissions, accounting for between 20 and 25% of all emissions each year. The gas we burn to heat our homes is fuelling the climate crisis, causing fires, floods and extreme weather all around us.
Heat pumps will help us get ahead on climate change, and off fossil fuels.
How many heat pumps are there in the UK already?
With roughly 160,000 heat pumps installed nationwide, the UK is lagging behind the rest of Europe with the worst record of heat pump sales in the continent.
The government’s new Heat and Buildings Strategy, announced in October 2021, has positioned heat pumps front and centre to make our homes fit for a renewable future. The government recently launched the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, offering grants of up to £5,000 to help around 90,000 households in upgrade their homes with heat pumps.
This is an important start, but it’s not enough to get the UK on track to reducing dangerous carbon emissions down to zero. The Climate Change Committee says that we need 900,000 heat pumps per year installed by 2028.
The government has a massive role to play in speeding this up - by helping more households make the switch to cleaner, greener heat pumps.
If you’re ready to move forward on climate by championing heat pumps, we need you by our side. Will you add your name to the growing number of people calling for clean home heating?
Now help more people get on board with climate-friendly heating - share this article with your friends and family.