Heat Pumps Are a Climate-Friendly Home Energy Fix
Rather than creating heat by forcing electricity through wire and making it hot, heat pumps extract heat that’s already in the air, ground or water outside, transferring it to a refrigerant.
Photographer: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images
Heat pumps offer a more efficient way to keep homes warm in winter and have been touted as a key technology in the fight against climate change. Sales of the machines in Europe grew to 3 million units in 2022 — almost double the figure for 2020 — after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused energy prices to surge, and governments are offering generous subsidies to encourage further adoption. Yet demand has begun to tail off amid concerns about cost, a lack of public understanding of an unfamiliar technology and a shortage of skilled installers. In 2023, sales fell in Europe for the first time in a decade, while in the UK, take-up of government funds to help households install heat pumps is way behind schedule.
A heat pump is a machine that uses electricity to warm a home or other space — like a car — but doesn’t work in the same way as traditional electric heaters. Put simply, heat pumps move heat around, which is more efficient and less energy-intensive than creating it by burning a fuel. Some heat pumps work by heating water, which is then pumped into radiators or underfloor heating, while others blow hot air directly into the space.