Innovations to make heat pumps cheaper and easier to install have
been backed by more than £15 million in government funding,
helping accelerate the UK’s move away from fossil fuels.
The funding is part of the government’s £60 million Heat Pump
Ready programme, which is developing innovative solutions for
reducing barriers to the rollout of low carbon technology in
homes and businesses across the UK.
A total of 24 projects in England and Scotland have won funding
in the second round of the Heat Pump Ready programme.
This funding comes alongside the government’s £450 million Boiler
Upgrade Scheme, that provides £5,000 grants to homeowners towards
the cost of a heat pump, and a zero rate of VAT for installing clean heating
measures and will make it an even more affordable option for
people looking to replace a gas or oil boiler in their property.
Heat pumps are already a proven technology that is much more
efficient than traditional fossil fuel boilers and provide a
reliable, low carbon heating solution for households.
Business and Energy Minister said:
In light of rising global gas and oil prices, getting low-carbon
heating technology into homes is a priority for this government
as it will help households ditch the costly fossil fuels that are
driving up bills.
Heat pumps are a proven, reliable technology that uses cheaper
renewable energy produced in the UK. We are already bringing
costs down through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and
slashing VAT to
zero, but by finding innovative ways to make them even cheaper
and easier to install, we will help more homes see the benefits
even quicker.
The key objectives of Heat Pump Ready are to reduce costs and
increase the performance of domestic heat pumps, minimise
disruption in homes during the process of heat pump installation
and develop financial models that support an increase in heat
pump deployment.
Innovation support is one part of the government’s strategy to
help bring low-carbon heating technology to the mass-market and
supports the target of installing 600,000 heat pumps a year by
2028.
Industry estimates that the UK heat pump market grew nearly 50%
last year and along with the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, Heat Pump
Ready is part of a wider package of policies the government is
introducing to scale up deployment and support industry to reduce
the costs of heat pumps.
Projects being supported by this stream 2 funding include one in
Harrogate in North Yorkshire that is using data from smart meters
to help optimise the running of a heat pump in a household energy
system, a scheme in Truro in Cornwall that is looking to develop
efficient and ecological refrigerants that are used in heat pumps
and a project in Thame in Oxfordshire looking at ways to reduce
the costs of installing and running a heat pump.
The £15 million stream 2 funding supports 37 small and medium
enterprises across the 24 projects in England and Scotland, will
support the creation of more than 300 jobs and will leverage £6.5
million of private investment.
Stream 2 of the Heat Pump Ready programme comes alongside streams
1 and 3. Stream 1 is providing over £2 million of funding across
11 projects developing feasibility studies for innovative ways to
increase the deployment of domestic heat pumps within their local
area. In their applications for Phase 1, project teams have
estimated a potential cost reduction of at least 20% could be
achieved through coordinated deployment.
Heat Pump Ready is part of the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation
Portfolio (NZIP) and funding was
announced in October 2021 alongside the Heat and Building
Strategy.
As a result of the strategy and with help from projects receiving
funding through the Heat Pump Ready programme, the government is
confident that, as the market for low carbon heating grows, the
cost of technology will fall rapidly. Working with industry, the
government is aiming for heat pumps to cost the same as fossil
fuel boilers to buy and run by 2030 at the latest with big
reductions of at least 25-50% by 2025.
Notes to editors
The 24 projects receiving
funding through Stream 2 of the Heat Pump Ready
programme.
Stream 1 of Heat
Pump Ready is providing over £2 million of funding across 11
projects in Newcastle, Sunderland, Leeds, Oxford, Greenwich,
Bristol, Teignbridge, Fenland, Perth, Cherwell and Bridgend.
These projects are working to develop feasibility studies for
innovative ways to increase the deployment of domestic heat pumps
within their local area. Projects will then use their project
findings to apply for up to £9 million for Stream 1, Phase 2, to
trial the solutions they have developed.
Stream 3 of Heat
Pump Ready is providing up to £5 million of funding to support
learning across the Heat Pump Ready Programme so evidence can be
shared across participants and with external heat pump
stakeholders. The £450 million Boiler Upgrade
Scheme (BUS),
which opened to voucher applications in May 2022, aims to
incentivise people by offering grants of £5,000 toward the
upfront cost of the installation of an air source heat pump, and
£6,000 for a ground source heat pump.
The government
has launched an online service to help households make
informed choices on installing low carbon heating, including heat
pumps, and upgrading the energy efficiency of their homes, as
part of its ‘Help to Heat’ support.
