Heat Pumps Today

05 N E W S www.acrjournal.uk/heat-pumps BRITISH GAS PREPARES FOR HEAT PUMP GROWTH British Gas has become the latest organisation to sign up to the UK’s main F-Gas register REFCOM as it seeks to keep pace with growing demand for heat pump installations. The energy giant’s social housing subsidiary PH Jones maintains more than 195,000 homes across the UK. It supports 23 social housing providers, has carried out almost half a million service calls and installs more than 11,000 heating systems and 850 renewable projects annually. A growing number of these installations now involve renewable systems with noticeable growth in heat pumps. It is actively recruiting to increase its team of skilled engineers and grow installation work backed up by ongoing expert service and maintenance. With the social housing sector moving more quickly towards low and zero carbon targets than other parts of the residential market, British Gas said upskilling the PH Jones workforce was a priority. “The industry is clearly suering from an acute skills shortage, and it is crucial that large employers like us step up to address it,” said PH Jones director Matt Isherwood. “As well as bringing new engineers into the sector, we also need to upskill our existing workforce, particularly those already involved in boiler installations and other ‘traditional’ heating projects. “They will be crucial to delivering high performing heat pump systems in line with the government’s ambitions, but the technology does require specialist skills. We recognise the importance of making sure everyone working for us is properly trained, accredited, and able to comply with legislation. Credentials “That is why we were very keen to become REFCOM members as it is the best way to demonstrate our credentials and support higher standards across the sector,” www.phjones.co.uk/www.refcom.org.uk Grant UK’s response to the UK Government’s plan to drive down the cost of clean heat Heating specialists, Grant UK has broadly welcomed the Government announcement that it plans to incentivise people to install low-carbon heating systems in ‘a simple and fair way as they replace their old boilers over the next few years. In the plans outlined in a press release on the 19th October 2021, households look set to benefit from a one-o £5,000 government grant through a £450 million Boiler Upgrade Scheme to help install low-carbon heating systems, part of more than £3.9 billion of new funding to decarbonise heat and buildings. “Grant UK welcomes this step on the journey to Net Zero for the UK, however there are some barriers to overcome before we can truly begin to roll out some of the Government’s proposals,” explains Neil Sawers, Grant UK’s Commercial Technical Manager. “Positive steps towards resolving the current skills shortage are being taken with both the CIPHE Low Temperature Heating Course in addition to the Heat Pump Associations (HPA) LCL Heat Pump Training course, both of which will be available from Grant UK towards the end of this year. It is imperative that both the Governments funding initiatives and retraining/up-skilling of the workforce work in parallel. “We are concerned that as yet there has been no announcement regarding other o gas heating alternatives, such as biofuels (HVO) and hybrid heating which would have a major impact on reducing carbon emissions and are more practical in terms of an immediate roll out. “Grant will continue to work with industry and Government to develop aordable solutions that focus not only on new-build and retrofit homes, but on the harder questions such as o-gas and hard to heat homes.” For more details visit www.grantuk.com CIBSE launches design guidance for heat pumps in high density housing New guidance on the design and installation of heat pump systems for multi-unit residential buildings has been published by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE). The decarbonisation of heating is a key element of UK climate policy. Heat pumps are the most energy-e¥cient means of heating a building electrically and, with a decarbonising electricity grid, are a widely applicable low-carbon heating solution. As such, they have a crucial role to play in the UK's transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, particularly in the residential sector. CIBSE Application Manual, AM16, has been written to enable engineers, architects and contractors to understand how heat pump technology can be best applied on new-build and retrofit applications in high density housing, including apartment blocks, student accommodation and care homes. The guidance deals with the design and optimisation of multi- unit heat pump systems. It addresses areas of design that are crucial for good heat pump performance, including the importance of sizing a heat pump correctly, mitigating the loss of capacity caused by defrost cycles and the impact of lower domestic hot water temperatures on design. The manual provides useful information on installation, commissioning, operation, maintenance and decommissioning. It also addresses the issue of user guidance for a technology that is very dierent to traditional fossil fuel heating systems. In addition, because cost is such a key project driver for residential construction, AM16 includes information on relative capital, energy and maintenance costs. A series of case studies have been included in the document to showcase the application of heat pumps in both new and existing multi-residential projects. CIBSE AM16: Heat pump installations in multi-unit residential buildings 2021 is available as a download from the CIBSE website, https://go.cibse.org/AM16