Britain’s Gas Prices Bring Heat Pump Adoption to New Places
Since May, heat pumps in the UK have predominantly replaced gas boilers, an important segment with implications for the clean-energy transition.
Engineers install an Ecoforest heat pump at the Octopus Energy training center in Slough, UK, last year.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/BloombergFor most of the past 15 years, heat pumps in the UK have mostly been installed in rural areas, where they tend to replace oil-fired central heating. This year, though, the European energy crunch is upending that trend: An analysis of government data shows that since May, heat pumps in Britain have predominantly replaced gas boilers.
Just under half of heat pump installations between May and October were in homes previously heated with gas, while one in four were in homes heated with oil. The introduction in May of a £5,000 grant towards the cost of a heat pump — as well as a now-expired program that offered homeowners quarterly payments to install low-carbon technologies — are also poised to push UK heat pump installations above 2021 levels this year, albeit only narrowly. The government’s target is for 600,000 new heat pumps to be installed each year by 2028, and adoption will have to speed up significantly to meet that goal.