Air Source Heat Pump Grants 2022 – The recent announcement by the government to stop fitting gas boilers by 2035 in favour of Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP’s) should be no surprise to the gas boiler industry or consumers. The government is keen to ensure the UK, not only meets it’s net zero target of 2050, but also makes secure its energy supply lines.
Whereas most of our gas is currently imported, electricity can be generated on the UK mainland through wind farms, solar pv systems and nuclear. It therefore makes sense to embrace electricity as a more secure sustainable source and low carbon heating for homes and businesses in the country.
Air Source Heat Pump Grants 2022 - Is It Worth It?
Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP’s) have had a bad press recently, largely stoked up by a lack of understanding of the technology and some unfortunate homeowner experiences. Two key factors are vital to ensuring they work effectively. Firstly, homeowners need to maximise the amount of insulation in their lofts and cavity walls before investing in heat pump technology. An Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is a good way of prioritising your investments to optimise your home’s energy efficiency and there are grants available that can support householders and business.
Secondly, providing the first point has been completed, the installed heat pump should be correctly installed and set up by the engineer to provide heat on a continuous basis. ASHP’s tend to work at lower temperatures, rather than gas boilers that deliver hot water to radiators very quickly. We have found, despite rooms in the home showing they have reached target temperatures, some customers still like the feel of a hot radiator, as it can be psychologically comforting.
Low Carbon Heating Measures
It is important to say that if a home is badly insulated, the cost of running an ASHP can be prohibitive. This is because, despite the recent price hikes, the cost of domestic gas still remains considerably lower than the price of electricity in the home. One kilowatt hour (Kwh) of electricity [e.g. the equivalent of using a one kilowatt fan heater continually for one hour] works out at around 15p compared with one Kwh of gas, which works out at around 6p per hour.
What does this mean for customers?
Correctly installed heat pumps should deliver the home a yearly average of 3 to 4kwh of heat for every kwh of electricity used. This means by comparison with gas boiler, heat pumps overall have the edge over a rolling year. However, if a heat pump is having to work harder in a poorly insulated building to deliver heat, particularly during the winter, the ration between electricity used and heat output will drop dramatically the costs of heating can increase disproportionately higher. This is because ASHP’s draw heat from the outside air temperatures and have to work harder to extract the heat, unlike Ground Source Heat Pumps that draw heat from the ground, where the temperatures remain constant.
Funding For Heat Pumps 2022
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme April 2022 (Clean Heat Grant) enables homeowners across England and Wales to be able to apply for a £5000 grant from the U.K Government as part of a drive to encourage a switch to renewable energy. These technologies include Air Source Heat Pumps, Biomass Heating and Ground Source Heat Pumps. This new Government grant will support homeowners to access u to £5000 for an ASHP installation and £7000 towards a Ground Source Heat Pump installation.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme will come into effect at the beginning of April and is expected to replace the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), which is due to end in March 2022. The scheme is designed to encourage homeowners to switch to low carbon heating systems through a grant incentive of up to £7000. This will enable the phasing out of fossil fuels in the coming years. In order to achieve the government’s ambitious target of installing 600,000 heat pumps every year by 2028, this scheme will be a step forward towards this.
How Do Heat Pumps Work?
A heat pump or (ASHPs) absorb heat from the outside air to heat your home and hot water. They can still extract heat when air temperatures are as low as -15°C. Heat pumps need electricity to run, but because they are extracting renewable heat from the environment, the heat output is greater than the electricity input. This makes them an energy efficient method of heating your home.
A well-designed heat pump system transfers around three to four times more energy into a property as heat then it uses to extract it. As a result, heat pumps are incredibly efficient and also have the potential to significantly lower fuel bills, particularly in properties without access to mains gas.
