ACR Journal

CMYK / .ai CMYK / .ai CMYK / .ai acrjournal.uk 39 HEAT PUMPS experience we know that raising the funds to complete such installations isn’t always easy for some public sector buildings. While the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) does pay back, it doesn’t help with the upfront cost which still remains a barrier to some organisations – and indeed the same can often be said for homeowners too. Retrofit According to the Committee on Climate Change, around 14 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions come from homes, mainly from gas boilers. The Committee on Climate Change’s report on UK Housing: Fit for the Future recommends that the UK’s 29 million existing homes must be made low-carbon, low-energy and resilient to a changing climate. The CCC advocates low-carbon sources of heating such as heat pumps and heat networks. The CCC also encourages the uptake of energy eˆciency measures such as loft and wall insulation are increased. However, we’d argue that the source of heating should be considered first. By installing a more energy eˆcient system such as a heat pump, you are immediately reducing the amount of energy required to produce the heat. By replacing electric or gas heating with a heat pump, energy consumption can be cut by around 75%, meaning that emissions are also reduced at the same rate. Insulation and cladding is, of course, a measure that can help heat loss but it can only save up to around 50% in the best possible cases. In some properties additional insulation is impractical – for example, in old or listed buildings where the appearance cannot be altered or it would have a detrimental e“ect. In addition, schemes to provide insulation do not deliver any additional benefit to the property owner, whereas the RHI does – and will do so for either seven or 20 years. If the UK is to scale up our commitment to cutting carbon emissions, we can’t just look at individual properties - district heating has also got to be a big part of this. However, it’s not just making a change in terms of taking out fossil fuel boilers but also a mindset change in the way we are prepared to buy heat for our homes. It is interesting to see district heating becoming more widely acknowledged and used as a means of heating more than one property using a ground source system. In the past three years, we’ve installed three large district heating systems for housing association Flagship. We read with interest in The Times in January too about the village of Swa“ham Prior in Cambridgeshire which is coordinating and funding its own district heating scheme to enable residents to step away from oil fired boilers and opt for a heat pump. We’ve been buying electricity, gas and water “over the fence” for years – it’s excellent to see people beginning to accept the idea of doing it with heat. The environmental benefits are, of course, in addition to the many advantages that these systems bring, such as easier servicing and maintenance for landlords too. New as standard In January, the government announced the Future Homes Standard and that all new build homes must not be connected to the gas grid from 2025. Instead, these homes should utilise low-carbon options and be ultra energy eˆcient. Over 90% of projects we undertake at Finn Geotherm are retrofit schemes. In the year 2021, I’m still stunned by the number of new housing estates being built with electric storage heaters. At a time when fuel poverty is such a significant issue, we should not be installing expensive and ineˆcient systems in any type of home – a“ordable housing or main stock. It should be the norm to install heat pumps and other renewable heating technology. The 2025 cut o“ is good news, but why wait until then? We need more forward-thinking housebuilders to start putting heat pumps in now. Between now and 2026, around one million more homes will be built – all of which will then need to be retrofitted at a later date. Installing the bore holes and heat distribution at initial build is much less costly than retrofitting it and of course doesn’t result in disruption to existing residents. There is still a vast job to be done on the retrofit market too – which will still account for 85 - 90% of dwellings by the time we reach 2025 – but this is a big step in the right direction for new builds. Upscaling These changes over the past 12 – 18 months have finally brought heat pumps to the fore as the best possible option to help tackle the climate emergency and o“er a better way of heating our homes, oˆces, shops, schools, hospitals and so many more buildings. But to correctly specify and install a heat pump takes skill. With demand set to increase, now is the time for us to be recruiting and training new sta“ to ensure that we have all the engineers we need ready to tackle these projects. Sta“ recruitment and training remains costly however – we train all our engineers for at least a year before counting them as fully qualified on our systems – so it is imperative that the Government helps create an environment of certainty for this market so that we can have the confidence to make the significant further investment required in our business and to ensure maximum take up of this brilliant technology.