HEAT PUMPS | IEA RESEARCH SEMINAR The UK government wants 800,000 heat pumps to be installed annually by 2028 awareness of heat pumps to give them the confidence and knowledge to try unfamiliar products. Beanland said installer training capacity was climbing fast, with new apprenticeships starting in 2023, and manufacturing and drilling capacity for ground source heat pumps increasing. We are becoming investable, but timeframes are becoming very constrained. Like Yu, he was concerned that the window of opportunity was closing fast, and called on politicians to stimulate the market. Renz said the IEAs HPT TCP was established to accelerate the universal implementation of heat pumps, and he believes the UK should collaborate with other nations to help reach the governments target. The HPT TCP is an international framework of cooperation and networking with 17 member countries and several new countries in progress, he said. It is essential we work as a global community to find the best solutions for a net zero future. Noel Salmon, energy innovation project manager at BEIS Data Insights, shared the results from demonstration projects that were designed to test the feasibility of a large-scale rollout of heat pumps in a range of housing archetypes. Heat pumps were installed in a representative sample of 742 homes, and data was collected at two-minute intervals, resulting in a huge data set with more than a billion lines of information. The project analysis looked at the experience of an installation for occupiers and the barriers to adoption, such as cost and disruption. The data revealed that hybrids were the cheapest to install because they did not require a hot-water tank. For air source heat pumps, upfront costs were 15,000 up to a maximum of 27,000, while costs for individual ground source heat pumps were 40,000. Costs were due, in part, to heat emitters needing to be replaced. On average, there were 8-10 radiators in the home, 80% of which would need to be replaced. The perception of the disruption that installation would cause was the main reason people dropped out of the trial. Clearly, there are barriers to overcome if there is to be mainstream adoption of heat pumps, so while there was an air of positivity among the speakers, it was apparent that action needs to be taken now, particularly by politicians, if government targets are to be met. Our technology is moving into the mainstream, almost in spite of the politics policy and government are broadly aligned with us here, but politicians may not be, said Beanland, who felt the UK government is terrified of making mistakes and had a no regrets approach to making policy decisions. We must accept we will make some mistakes or we will not reach the degree of change we need, he added. CJ A EUROPEAN VIEW Martin Forsn, manager of international affairs at NIBE, spoke about the European policy environment. The European Green Deal in 2020 proposed that Europe become the rst climateneutral continent by 2050. However, initial targets of a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a 15% increase in the use of electrical and renewable energy wont take us there. In July 2021, after multiple revisions, the reduction in GHGs was increased to 55%, renewable energy increased to 40%, and energy efciency by 36%. Forsn said the war in Ukraine had prompted the European Commission to come up with a strategic plan to rapidly reduce dependence on fossil fuels and accelerate the green transition, known as REPowerEU. He added that an increase in heat pump sales was already reecting the change in approach. The potential of natural refrigerants to help decarbonise heating and cooling was discussed by several speakers. We want to go in this direction, said Forsn,but we need help from policy-makers to do this. He said products using natural refrigerants were regulated as if we were installing a nuclear powerplant in our basement. Gas boilers are not so regulated, although these are products manufactured to emit [gases] it does not seem fair, he added. FLOOR MOUNTED LIFTING STATIONS DrainMajor 0118 9821 555 Compli 400 Authorised by Jung Pumpen GmBH POWERED BY Compli 1000 Compli 2500 www.jung-pumps.co.uk www.pumptechnology.co.uk 64 December 2022 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Dec 2022 pp64-65 Heat pump BEIS/IEA event.indd 64 25/11/2022 16:35