The Heat Pump Association (HPA) says the government’s announcement in the Spring Statement that gas boilers will be banned in new homes from 2025 is a step in the right direction. It also supports the comments made by the Committee on Climate Change in their recent report, ‘UK Housing: Fit for the Future?’, which called on the government to get serious about tackling emissions from homes.
The HPA believes that it is vital that consumers are made aware of the potential of heat pumps for low carbon heating. Heat pumps supply more energy than they consume by extracting heat from their surroundings. Currently, heat pump systems can supply as much as 3kW of heat output for just 1kW of energy input.
Graham Wright, HPA Chairman, said: “Although heat pumps can save considerable carbon emissions this has not been recognised yet in building regulation and the UK needs a mechanism to enable us to take advantage of the 10 years of investment in renewable power generation, which has seen a significant reduction in the amount of CO2 emitted per kWh generated.”
Wright continued: “Further investment in training is also required to enable the current cohort of boiler installers to be able to install renewable technologies, a task that the industry understands and will be working with all stakeholders to ensure we achieve.”