2023-06-05 18:18:43
Dhe UK government’s plans to install heat pumps in private homes are at a standstill, creating a dispute with the heating industry. So far, most households have been heated with gas boilers. The London government’s goal is to increase the number of heat pumps installed to 600,000 per year by 2028. Households can apply for a government grant of £5,000 (€5,800).
But demand remains rather weak and there are many caveats. In the last financial year, only a third of the grants on offer were accessed. In 2022, 60,000 heat pumps were newly installed. The relatively high cost of the devices, but also concerns about efficiency in poorly insulated houses, make many citizens skeptical. In Europe, Great Britain brings up the rear. Most recently, only two heat pumps were installed per thousand households – the EU average was five times as many.
Octopus trains plumbers
Now the government is putting pressure on, but heating manufacturers are vehemently opposed to plans to set quotas for the production and installation of heat pumps. From 2024 there will even be penalties. Failure to comply will result in a £5,000 fine for each missing heat pump. The government is considering introducing a heat pump quota relative to the number of gas boilers.
Larger heating manufacturers such as Vaillant, Baxi and others are up in arms. “If we are fined we will reconsider our investment plans,” said Henrik Hansen, Managing Director of Vaillant UK & Ireland, which currently employs around a thousand people in the UK. A second obstacle to expansion is – as in other countries – the lack of qualified installers for heat pumps. There are currently only about 3,000 on the island. This number has to be increased more than eightfold in order to reach the target of 600,000 installations per year, the industry calculates. The green electricity company Octopus is training several hundred new installers. Octopus has bought Northern Irish manufacturer Renewable Energy Devices, which produces around a thousand heat pumps a month.
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