If you believe some people, modern Britain is beset by three dastardly threats: small boats, woke ideology and, perhaps worst of all, heat pumps.
Here’s one of the screamier recent headlines from a certain mid-market English tabloid about the low carbon heating technology: “These heat pumps are saving the planet… but who will save our EARS?”
Who indeed. Obviously I commend the Daily Mail for its commitment to aural health, but is it really like living with a “jet engine” to be in the vicinity of a heat pump?
Amazingly, no it isn’t. I have one and before it was installed, I worried about the noise (perhaps because folk were suggesting it would be like living with a jet engine). The reality? Big shrug. It’s completely unobtrusive. It’s off much of the time anyway and when it is on you need to be within two or three metres to hear the low hum it makes.
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The background noise from indoor appliances is actually more intrusive in my experience so I’m looking forward to the self-styled voice of Middle England leading a national resistance campaign against fridges and gas boilers.
Heat pumps are an innocuous low carbon technology that thousands of people happily use but they are also a totem. They have become symbols of the net zero agenda that the UK and every other country must pursue if the worst effects of climate change are to be averted. The plan to replace gas boilers with low carbon technologies has enraged those who have an ideological objection to any infringement of personal freedom and we’ve seen a concerted pushback against the technology from certain papers and politicians.
First, a dose of reality. Polluting heating systems will be prohibited after 2045, not next week, as confirmed in the Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Bill consultation of last week.
Secondly, no one’s insisting that everyone has a heat pump. They are not suitable for every type of property – no publicly funded advice body suggests that they are – and other types of clean heating technology will be necessary, including district heating networks.
For properties that are suitable, heat pumps are more expensive than boilers, but generous grants are available that greatly reduce the cost, and householders can also get interest-free loans on top. Substantial financial help is also provided for home insulation to make homes suitable for heat pumps.
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That’s not to say there aren’t cost issues. Those worst hit by the cost-of-living crisis will struggle to pay for a heat pump or a replacement boiler. They may also be nervous about making the leap with something unfamiliar like a new heating system with a high up-front cost.
But it’s disappointing that misleading criticism of heat pumps could be putting off people who could install them with grant and loan support and would benefit from them. If we want to meet our climate targets, this is where we must start.
And we need to get on with it, because the UK is at the very bottom of the European tables when it comes to heat pump installations. The European Heat Pump Association (EHPA) in its latest market report states that a whopping 2.98m heat pumps were installed around Europe last year.
Only 55,000 of them were in the UK. In Scotland, 5,000 were installed last year, which is clearly nowhere near enough (although it’s a 67 per cent increase on the previous year).
The UK installed 1.9 heat pumps per thousand people last year. Chilly Finland, at the top of the table, installed 69.36.
In France, where heat pumps are a more recent innovation than in Finland, more than 10 times as many heat pumps were installed last year than in the UK, numbering 622,000 in total. A further 20 countries were ahead of the UK.
The UK is the laggard of Europe.
What does this tell us? For one thing, it shows that the technology is nothing to be afraid of. According to the EHPA, there are now 19.76 million heat pumps being used in the EU, with 17.83m for space heating, cutting emissions across Europe to the equivalent of the entire emissions of Greece. If heat pumps were crap and noisy and didn’t heat your home properly, I imagine someone would have noticed by now.
Heat pumps: Eight things I’ve learned after having one installed
The European experience also tells us that the more people have them and can vouch for them, the more consumers will have the confidence to install them.
Awareness about them in the UK is pretty low. This will need to change if there is to be more rapid take-up. Consumer Scotland research shows that perceptions of the high cost are the main barrier to people installing a lower carbon heating system, but lack of information is also a major issue.
I won’t revisit my own experience with a heat pump and enhanced insulation, except to say it works and we’ve saved money on our bills compared to using gas.
But perhaps the single biggest policy change that could boost heat pump take-up might be one that’s been staring us in the face for years. That’s to change the way electricity is priced. A report by the UK’s innovation agency NESTA in August shows that countries with less of a difference between the cost of electricity and gas, like France and the Netherlands, install more heat pumps.
The cost of producing power from renewable sources is low, but consumers don’t benefit from that. Currently in the UK, all electricity is typically priced according to the high cost of producing it in gas-fired power stations.
If the cost of cleanly produced power were decoupled from the cost of fossil fuel generated electricity, bringing the price of at least some electricity down, consumers would benefit and would be much more confident of making savings on their fuel bills by installing a heat pump.
The UK government launched a consultation that related to this last year and is consulting further.
Hot air and heat pumps seem to go together in more ways than one, but they are part of our future. If Scotland’s governments get the information, support and electricity pricing right, then they may well find consumers do the rest.
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