Ritika Janiya
Imagine a world where heating bills no longer frighten you every month. Well, that’s at least what most would like, and heat pumps could be the answer to it. Or do we all really get sold some hot air? Let’s delve into the story of these devices, how they work, and whether they can help Britain fulfill its climate promise.
Why heating our homes is a problem
Heating 28 million homes in the UK produces nearly 20% of this nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, most of our conventional means of heating through a gas and oil-fueled boiler shoots up the issue of climate change. Therefore, if UK wants to meet its climate goals, they will sooner than later require alternative means of warming themselves up outside fossil fuels.
Among these, however, probably the most promising alternative is the heat pump.
What is a heat pump, anyway?
A heat pump might look, on first glance, like a giant air conditioner attached to the outside of your home. And while an air conditioner cools the air inside your house, a heat pump is more like a refrigerator – but flipped upside down. It captures heat from the outside air, even if that heat’s pretty cool at that point, and uses it to warm up the water that flows through your radiators. Pretty slick, eh?
Heat pumps rely on refrigerant gas and a compressor to bring the temperature up to what can heat your house. Think magic, but with lots of science mixed in!
The Great Debate: Are Heat Pumps Really Worth It?
Some people hail the heat pump as a likely key to fighting climate change in the UK; others declare it pure hype with little payoff. The truth of it all? Somewhere in between.
So far, a total of 250,000 heat pumps have been installed in the UK. The number is increasing very fast, and 2024 is definitely going to break records as an installation year. This momentum is also assumed to be further supported by UK Labour’s announcement of a “home upgrade revolution” to make homes greener and more affordable to heat.
But before we all run off to install one, there are some big questions we need to answer first.
Are Heat Pumps More Expensive to Run?
The largest concern remains the cost. A heat pump can be highly expensive to acquire and install. In the UK, an air-source heat pump would cost approximately £12,500 on average; that is four to five times more than an average gas boiler. That is plenty of money for most families!
This ends, as the UK government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme is providing £7,500 in grants to help make this transition easier.
But even with the grant, some people fear that they might end up with higher energy bills. Why? Electricity (which heat pumps use) is about four times more expensive than gas in the UK.
But Are They Really That Costly to Run?
It gets interesting here. Heat pumps are electric in power and are definitely far more efficient than gas boilers. For each unit of electricity consumed, heat pumps can generate 2.5 to 5 units of heat. For every unit of gas, a gas boiler can generate only 0.9 to 0.95 units of heat, which means there is wasting of some energy.
Experts describe this efficiency with a term called the Seasonal Coefficient of Performance, Scop. When a heat pump scores above 3 on the Scop scale, it then could match the running cost of an 85% efficient gas boiler. From statistics, most heat pumps have a Scop of 2.9, meaning they might be slightly more costly to run compared to a gas boiler.
A recently conducted study of 750 households by Energy Systems Catapult shows that running a heat pump would cost about £14 a year more than running a gas boiler. That is not too bad, but not to be highly compensated for either.
Can New Tariffs Tip the Balance?
On the bright side, specific energy tariffs designed for heat pump users could make all the difference. Companies such as Octopus Energy and Ovo Energy have brought cheaper tariffs designed to suit the needs of the owner of a heat pump. Tariffs could make running a heat pump cheaper than a gas boiler even if your pump has a score lower than 2.9 on the Scop.
Therefore, even though the installation costs of a heat pump are quite high, it need not have running costs any steeper – and may be even less depending on what energy provider you have.
Are Heat Pumps the Future?
The UK has made great strides to popularize heat pumps, and at a time when 250,000 are already in use, it is glaringly obvious that they are there to stay. The technology is always constantly improving while government incentives are always making this shift easier for many people. If energy companies offer cheaper tariffs to users of heat pumps, then there will be even more attention paid by households to the green heating technology.
Still, it’s not smooth sailing. Heat pumps are best used in well-insulated homes, not a given in many UK older houses. And then, of course, there is still the issue of whether heat pumps are cheap enough for ordinary people, even considering grants.
The Bottom Line
So, is a heat pump the future of home heating, or much ado about nothing? Well, it’s a little bit of both; they have big potential to really make a difference in the fight against climate change, but there is still quite some way to go, particularly on the cost side and getting homes up to speed with this new technology.
Jump in, do your research. With new tariffs on energy and support from the government, it might be the right time to take the heat pump plunge – for your house and for the planet. As always weigh the pros and cons of such an enormous decision.
