LET'S TALK HEATPUMPS

Governors, Biden administration push to quadruple efficient heating, AC units by 2030

ISABELLA O'MALLEY
Updated Thu, September 21, 2023 

 A condenser sits on the roof during the installation of a heat pump on Jan. 20, 2023, in Denver. A bipartisan coalition of about 25 governors and the Biden administration are set to announce a pledge Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, to quadruple the number of heat pumps in U.S. homes by 2030. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)


A group of 25 state governors that make up the U.S. Climate Alliance and the Biden administration announced a pledge Thursday to quadruple the number of heat pumps in U.S. homes by 2030, from 4.7 million to 20 million.

Heat pumps use little electricity, yet are able to heat and cool buildings. Since they often replace oil or gas furnaces that add greenhouse gases to the air, they can meaningfully address climate change.

Buildings account for more than 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The pledge on heat pumps is a collection of state initiatives to work toward the goal of ramping down emissions to zero by 2050. Pennsylvania and seven other states, for example, will look into developing a “clean heat” standard, meaning one for how non-polluting a heater needs to be.

Some major manufacturers of heat pumps, including Johnson Controls, Siemens and Trane Technologies released a letter of support following the announcement.

The governors in the alliance represent approximately 60% of the U.S. economy and 55% of the country's population.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee called heat pumps “almost a miraculous solution” to three problems Americans face, “heating in the winter, cooling in the summer, and a reduction of carbon pollution.”

The reason heat pumps run on less electricity than other forms of heating is that they merely extract heat from outdoor air or underground and transfer it inside, instead of heating up a coil, for instance. They are just as good at cooling, pulling heat from indoors and dumping it outside or underground.

“Even on a winter’s day, heat pumps can take heat from outside, move it inside, and use less energy than if you were heating your house with a furnace," said Stephen Porder, a professor of ecology and assistant provost for sustainability at Brown University. ”A furnace makes heat by burning something, (but) moving heat is more efficient than making it.”

In Providence, Rhode Island where Porder lives, there is more call for heating than air conditioning. In 2014, he said, he ditched his oil furnace and installed heat pumps. "My house is more comfortable, my energy bills are about half what they were before, and my house’s greenhouse gas emissions, even counting the electricity to run the heat pumps, have dropped by 75%. Plus, I now have AC, which I didn’t have before," he said.

Because they help address climate change, heat pumps are highly incentivized under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which provides a 30% tax credit. Other states and utilities offer additional tax credits on top of the IRA incentive.

“There is already a huge increase in heat pump installations in the U.S. Heat pump units outsold gas furnace units, previously the most popular type of heating system, last year,” said Amanda Smith, a senior scientist at Project Drawdown, citing data from the International Energy Agency.

“People have been struggling with home heating costs and high energy costs in Maine, especially the last couple of years because we’ve been so over reliant on global fossil fuel energy markets,” said Maine Gov. Janet Mills. “I think people in Maine are interested in anything that will save them money, make their homes and businesses more efficient, and more comfortable financially.”

White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi noted rising demand for heat pumps will stimulate domestic manufacturing. But many clean energy businesses report shortages of qualified installers.

“We want to ensure that we're not held captive to foreign supply chain issues ... we want manufacturers here in the U.S. to get ready for high demand that we anticipate will follow this announcement,” said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Alexandra Rempel, associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Oregon, agreed heat pumps are more sustainable than traditional heating and cooling systems, but they are not highly efficient in extremely cold regions.

Like other systems, they use refrigerants — chemical fluids that significantly warm the atmosphere when they leak. They also draw power from the same electrical grid as everything else, which is often powered by fossil fuels, so their sustainability depends in part on the amount of green energy generated in that region, she pointed out.

“Overall, the benefits do outweigh the limitations in most places, but there are some limitations,” she said.

The governors of Washington, New York, and California formed the U.S. Climate Alliance in 2017 after the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Agreement. Alliance governors have pledged to collectively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26% by 2025 and at least 50% by 2030, compared to 2005 emission levels.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


UK
Heat-pump scheme 'one-dimensional', say heating firms
Ben Schofield & Ian Kelly - BBC News, East
Thu, September 21, 2023 at 4:46 AM MDT·6 min read


Across the UK, our homes have about 22 million boilers that burn fossil fuels. The government wants us to help the environment by switching to electricity for heating and hot water, and has just increased incentives to householders in England and Wales.

The scheme launched in May 2022, but has so far helped just 21,000 homes to convert. Firms behind new heating technologies say the government should go further, and faster.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced incentives of at least £5,000 to install heat pumps or biomass boilers would be increased to at least £7,500.

'It wasn't really sustainable'

Damian Lofthouse looked into having a heat pump installed but the work, disruption and other upgrades needed put him off

When Damian Lofthouse wanted to change his oil-fired boiler for something greener, he considered an air source heat pump, but decided against it, despite the government incentive.

Mr Lofthouse, from Norwich, hoped to cut his family's carbon footprint, and using electricity for heating and hot water was the next step.

Heating our homes contributes around 14% of the UK's carbon emissions and the Westminster government is pushing heat pumps to replace gas and oil boilers.

As well as being VAT-free, under the £450m Boiler Upgrade Scheme, air source heat pumps and biomass boilers attracted a £5,000 grant in England and Wales, with £6,000 available for ground source heat pumps.

The prime minister announced at a Downing Street press conference on Wednesday that grants were being increased by 50%.

Mr Lofthouse, 40, asked heat pump installers to conduct surveys and draw up quotes, but the results were not positive.

They told him "every radiator would need to be replaced" and that he might need planning permission.

"It got to a point where it just wasn't really sustainable for us in terms of the cost and disruption," Mr Lofthouse said.

He is not alone. While heat pumps can be installed in virtually any property, a briefing by the UK Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology in July said "most UK housing will need radiator upgrades to achieve good performance".

'Failing to deliver'

Katharine Kemp, whose company installs renewable heating systems, said many properties needed upgrading for heat pumps to work

Katharine Kemp, from Norfolk-based Leaping Hare Renewables, said that when installing a heat pump, "the whole house can have a great deal of disruption."

That could be two weeks or sometimes longer, she added.

Between May 2022 and July 2023, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme received grant applications for 21,212 air source and ground source heat pumps, an average of around 1,415 a month. It also helped pay for a much smaller number of biomass boilers.

Graphic showing how an air source heat pump works

In February, the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee said the scheme was "seriously failing to deliver" with a "disappointingly low take-up".

In response, the government said the take-up of heat pumps was higher under the current scheme than the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive, which it replaced.

Instead of a heat pump, Mr Lofthouse bought a "zero-emission boiler" from Tepeo.

The smart storage heater charges itself up when electricity is cheaper and greener, and then discharges into a home's existing radiators or hot water tank.

It does not qualify for any subsidies or VAT exemptions.

'Get with the times'

Tepeo, whose CEO is Johan du Plessis, makes a smart "zero-emission boiler" that is not included in the Boiler Upgrade Scheme

Tepeo's CEO and founder Johan Du Plessis said the government's policy needed to "get with the times".

Heat pumps were a "very important part of the solution", he said, but it was "very one-dimensional" to try to apply a single technology to all homes.

"Every single home in this country is different and we need to have a range of different options for people to decarbonise and electrify their heating, otherwise it's going to put people off," he said.

"For millions of homes out there for whom heat pumps don't work for a variety of reasons, those people are being excluded from the current policies that the government is employing."

A letter organised by Thermal Storage UK, an industry lobby group, and signed by organisations including the Energy Saving Trust and Citizens Advice, asked the Treasury to update a list of VAT-exempt energy-efficient products that had not been added to since 2006.

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Richard Nugee, chair of manufacturer Remit Zero, whose emission-free boiler replacement called Cylo does not qualify for financial incentives, said: "What government should do is provide that subsidy to all decarbonising heat sources... so that it is a level playing field."

That way, he added, home-owners, housing associations and others "can make their own choice as to which is the best product".

'Long way behind'

Gary Williams, co-founder of CeraPhi Energy, said he believed deep geothermal energy could heat homes in the future but needed more support

Great Yarmouth-based CeraPhi Energy believes it has another potential solution: deep geothermal.

It involves drilling up to 5km (3.1 miles) into the ground and capturing the higher temperatures beneath the earth's surface.

Gary Williams, CeraPhi co-founder, said it could be used to heat water in shared systems at large developments such as universities, hospitals and new housing estates.

The company is testing its technology in a disused fracking well in Yorkshire and said places like Hunstanton – a geothermal hotspot on the north Norfolk coast – could be ideal.

"We started this three years ago and at that time the government really wasn't looking at deep geothermal - it was being dismissed," Mr Williams said.

But the technology - like offshore wind power 25 years ago - needed government backing to mature, he added.

"Government is starting to wake up – but they're are a long, long way behind where they need to be in supporting this industry," he said.

'Fully committed'

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: "The Boiler Upgrade Scheme has paid out £81m-worth of vouchers to date and, as a result, families can now install a heat pump for an increasingly similar price to a gas boiler.

"Heat pumps are a proven option of decarbonising heat, and we remain fully committed on meeting our aim of 600,000 installations a year by 2028."

The Treasury said it did not comment on tax policy outside of the Budget or the Chancellor's Autumn Statement, but taxes were always under review.

BBC News:

10,000 fewer heat pump grants available to households after Rishi Sunak's net zero overhaul
Jonathan Leake
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Rishi Sunak press conference - Justin Tallis/AFP


Ten thousand fewer households a year will be able to claim heat pump grants from the Government after Rishi Sunak’s overhaul of the scheme, it has emerged.

Just 20,000 households a year will be able to claim the Prime Minister’s more generous heat pump grants because the Government left a cap on the cost of the scheme unchanged.

Mr Sunak announced this week that he was increasing the grants to replace gas boilers with heat pumps from £5,000 to £7,500 per household.

However, it has since emerged that the £150m overall cap on the scheme has not been changed.

As a result, the number of households able to claim the grants each year will plummet from 30,000 a year to 20,000.

That compares with the Government’s declared target of persuading 600,000 households a year to switch to heat pumps by 2028 to ensure the UK reaches its net zero targets.

If the cap remains, just 3pc of the numbers targeted will be able to get the grants. The rest must pay the full costs for themselves.

Heat pump installations typically cost between £7,000 and £15,000, whereas replacing gas boilers costs £2,000 to £4,000. Increasing the budget of the grant scheme to fund 600,000 installations a year would cost £4.5bn annually.

Mr Sunak announced the increase in the size of individual heat pump grants as he overhauled the Government’s approach to net zero to stop families facing unnecessary costs.

As part of the changes, the Prime Minister watered down the plan to phase out gas boilers by 2035 and created an exemption for a fifth of households.

This change means they will potentially never switch to alternatives such as heat pumps.

He said: “We’ll never force anyone to rip out their existing boiler and replace it with a heat pump.”

Charlotte Lee, the chief executive of the Heat Pump Association, said the changes were “yet another blow for the heating industry’s confidence in Government policy”.

She said: “Manufacturers have invested in good faith in manufacturing facilities and training to support heat pump deployment in keeping with the Government’s election manifesto.”

Henrik Hansen, managing director of boiler manufacturer Vaillant, welcomed the increase in the grants for householders but added: “If the overall budget is not increased, the number of homeowners able to access the grant will be limited to 20,000 per annum, which represents less than 0.1pc of the housing stock in the UK, potentially slowing down the transition to heat pumps.”

The boiler upgrade scheme was introduced in May 2022 as a way of reducing the 68 million tonnes of CO2 emitted annually from home heating, which amounts to about 20pc of the UK’s emissions. It was expected to run until 2025 but has since been extended to 2028.

Responsibility for the scheme rests with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero where Claire Coutinho recently replaced Grant Shapps as Energy Secretary.

A spokesman said the £150m cap was in place till the end of 2025 but could be reviewed, and added: “The Government has allocated £6bn for clean heat and energy efficiency spending over 2025 to 2028, from which funding for the extension to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme will be agreed in a future fiscal announcement.”