Notice

Heat Pump Ready Programme: Stream 3 videos

Updated 12 March 2026

Smart and flexible home energy systems

Heat Pump Ready Film A

Transcript

Will Rivers (Associate Director, Heat Decarbonisation, The Carbon Trust):

Heat Pump Ready is part of the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which aims to set the UK on a path to a low carbon future and cut the costs of us getting there.

Heat Pump Ready supported 45 innovation projects to accelerate the scale and pace of heat pump deployment in homes, cost effectively.

[Caption: Smart and flexible home energy systems]

One of the areas we focused on was smart and flexible home energy systems.

[Caption: Why are smart controls, flexibility and the remote monitoring of heat pumps important?]

Casey Cole (CEO, Guru Systems):

Flexibility in the energy system matters, because when we have a large scale deployment of renewables, sometimes you’ve got more electricity than you need, and you’ve got to displace that electricity in time, which requires flexibility of one type or another.

Mark Lufkin (Chief Product Officer, Wondrwall):

Today, we adjust the supply to meet demand. In the future, what we need to do is adjust demand to meet the supply of energy.

We have to effectively shift our demand to when that sun is shining or when the wind is blowing, store that energy within our homes, and then use it at the times when the wind’s not blowing or the sun’s not shining. And that’s what demand flexibility is.

Ian Rose (Sales & Strategy Director, Passiv UK):

When you’ve got a gas boiler and you’re running it on gas, the time at which you use that gas is irrelevant.

The gas is stored in the pipes. You can’t do that with electricity.

The time at which you use the electricity actually is critically important in terms of how much it costs.

The ability to start to be a bit clever in terms of when you’re going to consume power to heat your home or fill your hot water tank, becomes important if you’re trying to deliver those services at the lowest cost.

Ian Hutton (Director of Product Engineering, Switchee):

Remote monitoring is collecting data from each home so that remotely everybody knows what’s going on in that home.

And diagnostics particularly is collecting data from devices in that home so that we know how well they’re performing.

So for a heat pump, the diagnostic is: Is it performing well? What’s its COP? How effectively is it performing?

Box:

THOM - Total Home Optimisation Management

• Project lead: Gen Game
• Partners: Evergreen Energy Ltd, Chameleon Technology Ltd, TalkTalk, EnAPPsys Ltd, University of Salford (Energy House)

Tom Moore (Head of Product and assurance, Chameleon Technology):

What we’ve done on this project is to use smart meter data that people already have from their homes alongside other data that we can gather around from different sources, to establish the thermal efficiency of a house and whether it is or isn’t suitable for a heat pump, or whether it will or won’t be suitable for flexible use.

The second part to the project is to then provide some of that flexibility in life. So we are optimising the heat pump to operate within the context of other in-home technologies such as solar or storage or an electric vehicle.

Box:

Smart Temperature Automation Technology

• Project lead: Passiv UK

Ian Rose (Sales & Strategy Director, Passiv UK):

What we’ve done is, we’ve effectively turned our device into a consumer access device that can talk directly to the smart meter in order to consume this power consumption data, to allow trading of flexibility with the broader energy system.

And that opens up a wealth of new opportunity for the consumer to go and find best value.

Box:

Intelligent airsourcing to net zero

• Project lead: Wondrwall Ltd
• Partners: Daikin Airconditioning UK Ltd

Mark Lufkin (Chief Product Officer, Wondrwall):

What the home energy management system is doing effectively is aligning the heat pump and the hot water to the battery storage and the solar generation within the home, with the goal of getting them all to go and work together.

Box:

Digitising the Customer Journey of Heat Pumps in Social Housing

• Project lead: Switchee Ltd
• Partners: Leeds Beckett University, Daikin Airconditioning UK

Ian Hutton (Director of Product Engineering, Switchee):

What we’ve been doing is getting more detailed data from within each home to get real data on how each heat pump and how each home is performing, and then reflecting that data back to the people living in the home.

So they get a much better understanding of, “Okay this is how my home’s performing”.

Box:

Guru Smart Heat Pumps

• Project lead: Guru Systems Ltd

Casey Cole (CEO, Guru Systems):

Our innovation enables remote monitoring and diagnostics by installing a small bit of electronics alongside every heat pump that’s put in.

And in doing that, we can pull back data from the meters that measure things like the electricity into the heat pump and the heat out.

But we can also talk directly to the heat pump to learn everything that it knows and then to take control remotely to change its configuration and ensure that it’s performing as well as it ought to.

[Caption: What were the results and what impact will this have?]

Mark Lufkin (Chief Product Officer, Wondrwall):

One of the big benefits we got out of the project was being able to prove the savings with the heat pump.

Those savings allowed us to implement our business model, which was to provide the kit (which we would otherwise have been selling) for free.

Ian Rose (Sales & Strategy Director, Passiv UK):

In order to trade your flexibility, you have to demonstrate you’ve delivered it. The point of truth is your smart meter. By integrating our Passiv Smart Thermostat with the smart meter, we can suck out that data from your meter, and we can present that to National Grid as evidence of service delivery.

Tom Moore (Head of Product and Assurance, Chameleon Technology):

We ran several field trials as part of the projects, one of which was to try and determine how much flexibility can be delivered as part of events run by the National Grid, by homeowners who have a heat pump.

Our tests and trials established that around 440 watts can be saved by a homeowner with a heat pump.

Ian Hutton (Director of Product Engineering, Switchee):

Switchee is very much designed from the ground up for social housing.

The diagnostic data gives them a much better understanding of what is going on in each home, which enables them not to be reactive only when tenants complain to them, but actually to be proactive and to make sure that every tenant’s home is healthy and every tenant has reasonable heating bills.

Casey Cole (CEO, Guru Systems):

By having that remote access to data, you can then make decisions about control of those energy systems.

You can also enable innovative commercial models like ‘Comfort as a Service’ because you’ve got the data.

Our business model is to offer this as ‘Software as a Service’, which means that we can scale it to any number of users very easily.

[Caption: Additional reflections on the role of the Heat Pump Ready programme.]

Ian Rose (Sales & Strategy Director, Passiv UK):

Heat Pump Ready has been a great experience for us. It’s established new relationships for us.

It’s really given us a springboard ahead of, what would have been our plan to take the product forward.

Ian Hutton (Director of Product Engineering, Switchee):

The opportunity to get involved in this project has been great.

It’s enabled us to accelerate some of the work we were doing.

Mark Lufkin (Chief Product Officer, Wondrwall):

The real key benefits out of the heat pump ready program were… I’m not sure we would have done this without it. So, it’s turned us into a proponent of heat pumps.

[Music]

[Caption: The Heat Pump Ready programme was funded by the Department for Energy security and Net Zero as part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio 2021 to 2025 (NZIP), a £1 billion fund that aimed to accelerate the commercialisation of low-carbon technologies, systems and business models in power, buildings, and industry.]

Improving the customer journey for heat pump adoption

Heat Pump Ready Film B

Transcript

[Music]

Will Rivers (Associate Director, Heat Decarbonisation, The Carbon Trust):

Heat Pump Ready is part of the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which aims to set the UK on a path to a low carbon future and cut the costs of us getting there.

Heat Pump Ready supported 45 innovation projects to accelerate the scale and pace of heat pump deployment in homes, cost effectively.

[Caption: Improving the customer journey for heat pump adoption]

This video focuses on improving the customer journey for heat pump adoption.

Gareth Robertson (Founder, Thermly):

There currently isn’t a coherent customer journey. The customer has to go to multiple different places in order to navigate their way through the different aspects of acquiring a heat pump.

Inga Jirgensone (Business and Market Development Director, Energy Savings Trust):

The main barriers are around, information, getting the right information, accurate advice.

Andy Lawrence (Net Zero Innovation Lead, EDF):

The duration of the journey is significantly longer than obtaining a gas boiler, for instance.

Jane Wilson (COO, Hildebrand):

Lack of awareness and understanding. The metaphor we give to that is, “I don’t drive, but I know how to buy a car.”

People don’t know how to even ask the first question about a heat pump.

Inga Jirgensone (Business and Market Development Director, Energy Savings Trust):

Sometimes consumers find it hard to reach installers, get a quote and go ahead with the installation.

Gareth Robertson (Founder, Thermly):

Each of those points quite often involve difficult, painful, time consuming phone calls and are drop off points for a consumer.

[Caption: What is your proposed customer journey?]

Box:

Catalyst - Accelerating the heat pump journey

• Project lead: EDF
• Partners: Daikin Airconditioning UK Ltd, SPEN, University of Sheffield

Andy Lawrence (Net Zero Innovation Lead, EDF):

The tool will bring everything into one convenient location for the consumer, and it takes them all the way through from starting their inquiry through sales, survey, installation and even aftercare.

The technology has a large role to play in helping streamline the process for customers, which links into various APIs and publicly available data sources.

Box:

Thermly

• Project lead: VIA Analytics Ltd
• Partner: Daedalus Environmental Ltd

Gareth Robertson (Founder, Thermly):

Right from the outset you have some very simple to follow analysis and overview of what a heat pump is.

You can go through a very simple process of actually tailoring a report to your own home.

And with what we think is, conservatively, a 2 minute journey, we can give you an assessment of how much might it cost for you to install a heat pump.

You’re given a choice of installers, through a very intuitive calendar system, right through to the point of booking, conducting a survey and then an installation and paying on platform.

So end-to-end.

Box:

Glowmarkt

• Project lead: Hildebrand Technology Ltd
• Partners: Richard Carmichael Research & Consulting Ltd, Build Test Solutions Ltd, Davies and McKerr Ltd, SE2 Ltd

Jane Wilson (COO, Hildebrand):

Our actual customer journey is to help people make better informed decisions through giving them factual information, through smart meter data, which tells you about your house, your energy consumption. And therefore you can predict what a heat pump’s running cost will be. You can choose to share all of that data with the installer. So the installer comes to your house halfway there.

The other way that our system will be different is the Property Passport. When your engineer leaves your house, all his learning doesn’t go with him. So that when you have your annual service, the engineer who comes next will look back at that information. And then when you sell your house, you can securely pass all of that to the next owner.

Box:

EST MCS Heat Pump Consumer Journey

• Project lead: The MCs Service Company, Energy Saving Trust Ltd

Inga Jirgensone (Business and Market Development Director, Energy Savings Trust):

We are combining the Energy Saving Trust’s expert, impartial advice, with the confidence in MCS quality assurance and consumer protection, into an end-to-end journey to allow and guide the consumer through, all the way from initial engagement to allowing them to get the quotes proceed with installation, and after care in line with the standards.

Gareth Robertson (Founder, Thermly):

It should make the process a lot quicker. It can easily take 3 or 4 months. We think conservatively we can take 60% off that.

Inga Jirgensone (Business and Market Development Director, Energy Savings Trust):

It makes it really easy to follow through from the initial engagement all the way through to the installation.

Jane Wilson (COO, Hildebrand):

Post installation, we want to be able to use data so that you know whether you have a performant system. From data alone, we’re hoping that we can do the analytics, that people then build their comfort up that way, and then call the installer back and say, “Hey that’s a problem”.

Inga Jirgensone (Business and Market Development Director, Energy Savings Trust):

In the heat pump journey, you need someone to do the home assessment to really calculate the amount of heat that you need to keep the home warm. Our customer journey focuses on that trusted advice and impartiality. And by producing the report independently from installers, the customer owns the report, they can obtain multiple quotes.

They have that consistency in terms of what they’re providing and what installers are quoting against.

Andy Lawrence (Net Zero Innovation Lead, EDF):

Within the heat pump installation company, for instance, a lot of the; 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there, just emailing, just making a quick phone, call will be eliminated and automated.

Inga Jirgensone (Business and Market Development Director, Energy Savings Trust):

Installers are there to do business. They want to do installations and this platform allows them to reach consumers, provide quotations and proceed to works, and they can provide accurate quotation without needing to visit the property.

Gareth Robertson (Founder, Thermly):

It brings to that installer base, customers who don’t come with a whole series of questions about all the things that we’ve already educated them about.

Andy Lawrence (Net Zero Innovation Lead, EDF):

For the installation engineer themselves, the survey duration will be reduced by using some software to help measure the home. And they’ll have all the documents available in a really convenient location.

[Caption: What were the learnings and what impact will this have?]

Inga Jirgensone (Business and Market Development Director, Energy Savings Trust):

I think the main learning is to think about it from consumer perspective, which involves a certain level of simplicity in the journey, but at the same time making sure that you communicate in a language that consumers can resonate with.

Gareth Robertson (Founder, Thermly):

We offer a choice of 3 installers currently. Those installers are able to offer up to 2 heat pump choices.

Why have we come up with those numbers? Well, that’s through surveying. Some people obviously want more, some people want less. But 3 was a more or less a happy medium.

Installers are happy to be in a competition for a piece of work, but they don’t want to be up against a huge number of fellow installers.

Andy Lawrence (Net Zero Innovation Lead, EDF):

Part of the original brief of the project was to explore whether elimination of pre-installation home visits was possible. We quite quickly established that, both from a consumer confidence point of view and from a business trust point of view, that was highly unlikely to be to be a viable option.

The consumer’s unlikely to be wanting to spend £5,000 to £10,000 after grants on something that they have no human contact with the business other than typing a few things into a web page.

The company itself would be putting a large risk on themselves to 100% trust all the answers the customers given them as well as some of the answers that we’ve mined from external databases.

Jane Wilson (COO, Hildebrand):

We need the case studies. If you can go on a case study and find other people and see what good looks like, you’re much more likely to feel that bit more comfortable.

And of course heat pumps, because the adoption journey is so early as a country, we need to help people feel that there is someone like me out there.

[Music]

[Caption: The Heat Pump Ready programme was funded by the Department for Energy security and Net Zero as part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio 2021 to 2025 (NZIP), a £1 billion fund that aimed to accelerate the commercialisation of low-carbon technologies, systems and business models in power, buildings, and industry.]

Improving the survey and design process for heat pumps

Heat Pump Ready Film C

Transcript

[Music]

Will Rivers (Associate Director, Heat Decarbonisation, The Carbon Trust):

Heat Pump Ready is part of the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which aims to set the UK on a path to a low carbon future and cut the costs of us getting there.

Heat Pump Ready supported 45 innovation projects to accelerate the scale and pace of heat pump deployment in homes, cost effectively.

[Caption: Improving the survey and design process for heat pumps]

This video focuses on improving the survey and design process for heat pumps.

[Caption: What is the survey and design process important?]

Rik Temmink (Chief Product Officer, Green Energy Options (geo)):

For assessing suitability of homes for heat pumps, there are 2 main approaches.

One is to measure actual performance, using energy data and temperature sensors.

The other one is to send qualified surveyors to homes who look at the situation and make assessment and estimates about the actual performance.

Richard Jack (Technical Director, Built Test Solutions):

So the main problem that we saw, and we’re trying to address, is that it’s very difficult to assess the energy performance, the heat loss of a building by a visual survey.

At the moment the business as usual is that installers do their own heat loss calculations. And because they’re room by room heat loss calculations, they’re quite involved, quite time consuming on site to do the survey, but also to do the processing afterwards.

Griff Thomas (Managing Director, Heatly):

The current process for conducting surveys is mainly paper based, and that involves somebody walking around a house doing a sketch and taking measurements of walls and windows and doors and radiators. It’s very time consuming and very, very laborious.

The survey process can produce variable results.

Hermione Crease (Co-founder, Purrmetrix):

You might find quotes from a number of different suppliers, who have different estimations of the heat loss and the size of the heat pump in your home.

Rik Temmink (Chief Product Officer, Green Energy Options (geo)):

The challenge is that there are millions of homes that need heat pumps.

And if you’re going for an approach where each of these homes has to be assessed by a surveyor, there’s just a logistical problem.

There’s a certain number of surveyors that are qualified to do that and they’re not enough to quickly survey that many homes.

Jamie Elliot (Managing Director, Homely Energy):

Some of the problems we see just now, in terms of the design and installation of heat pumps, is that there can often be a discrepancy between what’s been specified and how it’s going to actually operate in real life.

What that can often lead to is disgruntled customers, because they don’t necessarily get the experience that they’re looking for.

But also then installers have to go back out to site to try and understand what’s going on with the system, and why it’s performing in a certain way.

Box:

Right Sizing Heat Pumps

• Project lead: Hoare Lea
• Partners: City Science Corporation, Purrmetrix, Places for People Group Ltd

Hermione Crease (Co-founder, Purrmetrix):

To deal with the problems of variable results from surveys and results that may be oversizing heat pumps, what we’re proposing is an approach that actually measures the rate of heat loss in a home, takes those measurements and uses them for recommendations around the right size of heat pump, and then also produces a forecast of how that heat pump might perform in the home.

By using measurement rather than survey, what we’re able to do is to reduce the overhead that an installer has to put into sizing a system. In effect, we can actually take a test and just post it directly to the customer. So there’s very, very low touch for an installer.

Box:

MEASURED: The role of measured building performance in heat pump specification, system design and management

• Project lead: Build Test Solutions
• Partners: Veritherm UK, Elmhurst Energy Services Ltd

Richard Jack (Technical Director, Build Test Solutions):

The MEASURED project was, “Let’s go and find out how important, and how much benefit there could be to heat pump install, by measuring heat loss of buildings”.

We went and measured the heat loss of 80 buildings, and also calculated their heat loss. And we could understand by doing that how costly and time consuming the measurement and the calculations were, and also compare the results. In the project, it was really about comparing the predictions and the measurements.

Box:

AI Smart Heat Pathway

• Project lead: Green Energy Options (geo)
• Partners: ScottishPower, Valliant

Rik Temmink (Chief Product Officer, Green Energy Options (geo)):

The solution that we’re looking at is to actually digitalize the front end, the top of the funnels we call it.

If we could pre-screen millions of homes and then find homes that are likely to be suitable for a heat pump, then we can deploy the surveyor capability that exists at those homes, instead of just spreading them across millions of homes.

The main idea is that if we can automate and digitalize the upfront screening of homes, we can make much better use of the limited capacity of surveyors there is in the market. So we’re focusing them on looking at the homes that are likely to be able to accommodate a heat pump.

Box:

Heatly

• Project lead: Heatly

Griff Thomas (Managing Director, Heatly):

We went really bold and decided to tackle every single stage of that journey to try and streamline it and digitise it from what’s traditionally been a very paper-based process to something that’s entirely digital.

What Heatley aims to do is to bring together lots and lots of parties, whether that be the DNO, the installer, the consumer, the manufacturers, all into one application where everything will talk to each other and produce a seamless journey for the consumer, but also the installer, at any part during the heat pump journey.

Box:

HomelyLifetime

• Project lead: Homely Energy

Jamie Elliot (Managing Director, Homely Energy):

What the aim of Homely Lifetime is to do is to try and help the in-life experience for installers and customers once the heat pump’s been installed.

For installers, it’s about how it’s operating, can they be better equipped to understand when issues are there, and then more proactively serve their customers, but also reduce their cost of servicing as well.

[Caption: What were the results and what impact will this have?]

Hermione Crease (Co-founder, Purrmetrix):

Previous versions of this sort of test have really only been possible in deep winter. And now we reckon we can get to about 8 months of testing season for this test. We can also see innovations that might get us to you know 10 or possibly even 11 months for this test.

For customers, you’ve got the issue of having a single test that whoever applies it, whichever installer you give it to, that test gives you the same result. You can install it yourself and it will give you the same result. So that is very important for building confidence and trust in the overall design process.

Richard Jack (Technical Director, Build Test Solutions):

We also found that in 70% of cases, the heat loss calculation was wrong. So it was only right 30% of the time. So almost always it changes what the heat pump design would be. And most of the time it meant that the heat pump was smaller.

So the benefit for the resident is that they get the right system first time. It would mean that if they were going to be oversized by a calculation, they would have a cheaper in store, they would have less disruption and they should have more efficiency in use, so lower running costs over time.

Rik Temmink (Chief Product Officer, Green Energy Options (geo)):

What we found is that our digital and automated solution is actually a lot more accurate and precise than the current standard methods for doing heat pump surveys.

We’re at 12% for the heat model with indoor temperature and 22% for the model without uh indoor temperature.

And to put that in context, that is about twice as accurate as RD SAP, or twice as pre precise as RDS SAP, and about 4 times more accurate than the MCS mandated way for estimating heat pump sizing.

So our process allows a consumer to go online, put in their address, give consent to use their energy data, and we can literally provide an answer as to suitability within 60 seconds.

Griff Thomas (Managing Director, Heatly):

Without realizing it, both consumers and installers actually have much the same problem in a heat pump journey. And a lot of it is about information flowing from one place to another, or just getting hold of the right information and having the confidence to know that a system is going to be set up and installed correctly.

Based on the Heatly app, we can give both the customer and the installer those assurances that the system is going to run to the best of its ability.

For the installers, it’s giving them the tools that they need to be able to ensure that their customers are happy. Heatley’s really streamlined that by installers being able to go in and just to use a video on their phone.

We think it would take around about 15 to 20 minutes to survey and build a full digital twin of a typical 3 bed semi-detached property.

Jamie Elliot (Managing Director, Homely Energy):

If you’ve got a portfolio of heat pumps and, let’s just say 100 heat pumps that you’ve installed, you can log into the Homely Connect platform and see them all there. And it will also send you alerts about what’s working and what’s not working potentially. So it will give you an initial alert status of all your heat pumps. And those facing issues will proactively tell you what those issues are.

By being able to see that issue, installers can better educate the customer in terms of what to do, and they can do that without having to go to site. So it removes the need for visits.

[Caption: Additional reflections on the role of the Heat Pump Ready programme]

Jamie Elliot (Managing Director, Homely Energy):

The Heat Pump Ready programme has been really, really useful for us for a number of reasons. It’s obviously helped us accelerate developing a feature that’s been really, really valued by installers. And we’re seeing the feedback of that already that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to do.

Richard Jack (Technical Director, Build Test Solutions):

Heat Pump Ready has been a pretty unique grant funding. Most grant funding is a sum of money with a project objective, and you go off and do it.

But this has been pretty different in that the cohort engagement’s been really good. We’ve had the annual conferences, so we’ve met loads of people through it. We’ve made really good business relationships, commercial relationships and learning relationships through the programme.

[Music]

[Caption: The Heat Pump Ready programme was funded by the Department for Energy security and Net Zero as part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio 2021 to 2025 (NZIP), a £1 billion fund that aimed to accelerate the commercialisation of low-carbon technologies, systems and business models in power, buildings, and industry.]

Finance models to support heat pump deployment

Heat Pump Ready Film D

Transcript

[Music]

Will Rivers (Associate Director, Heat Decarbonisation, The Carbon Trust):

Heat Pump Ready is part of the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which aims to set the UK on a path to a low carbon future and cut the costs of us getting there.

Heat Pump Ready supported 45 innovation projects to accelerate the scale and pace of heat pump deployment in homes, cost effectively.

[Caption: Finance models to support heat pump deployment]

A key area we focused on was finance models to support heat pump deployment.

[Caption: Why is innovation in financial models for heat pump deployment important?]

Alex Godsell (Founder, Fornax):

Currently, heat pumps are unaffordable for most homeowners, and they lack the trust and confidence that they’re going to keep them warm and comfortable in their homes.

Jo Coleman (Manager, Retrofit Services, Cotality UK):

One of the more significant barriers to decarbonizing homes is the upfront cost to homeowners.

Our project was specifically aiming to address that higher upfront cost.

Dr Zack Gill (Net Zero technical analyst, Energiesprong UK):

We work solely with social housing providers.

There is a lot of retrofit happening. And yes, it costs it costs a lot.

It’s the payback mechanisms on that financing, which is I think one of the key problems, and that’s what we were trying to overcome in our project.

Box:

The government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) provides grants to property owners to enable them to transition away from fossil fuel to low carbon heating.

The BUS has a committed budget of £295 million for this year (2025 to 2026), ensuring more families can benefit from £7,500 off the cost of a heat pump.

Funding for the BUS will continue and will increase each year up to 2029 to 2030.

[Caption: What is the solution that you developed through your Heat Pump Ready project and how was it innovative?]

Box:

Technology platform for heat pump subscriptions

• Project lead: Fornax Energy

Alex Godsell (Founder, Fornax):

We solved these problems, firstly by fundamentally lowering the cost of installations as much as we can, then by spreading that lower cost over a longer period of time. So up to 12 years.

And finally, we offer a guarantee for that entire period that consumers are going to have a quality working system, where if there are any issues, that’s on us, not on them.

As an example, instead of a homeowner, spending between £5,000 and £8,000, they might be paying between £60 and £90 a month. And that includes all of the servicing and guarantees and peace of mind that comes with that. By helping homeowners be more comfortable with getting a heat pump and more able to afford to get a heat pump.

We are also helping installers to win more business, remove more fossil fuel-based systems, and replace them with quality heat pump systems.

Box:

Performance

• Project lead: Parity Projects Ltd
• Partners: London South Bank University, ICAX Ltd, Cambridge Energy, Retrofitworks

Jo Coleman (Manager, Retrofit Services, Cotality UK):

Existing energy models are based upon broad assumptions.

What we’re trying to do is override those assumptions with actual monitored data. And that creates a really accurate model.

We’ve deconstructed the building physics, to understand every single element of the energy use calculation, and we’ve used that knowledge to improve the algorithms and the data science.

Our solution is driven by monitoring software, monitoring equipment. The idea behind the model that we’ve built is that it will be able to provide a performance guarantee.

So post retrofit, we can absolutely guarantee that you’re going to achieve these savings in this property. And that essentially is going to give lenders the confidence to lend homeowners the money to do the retrofit.

Box:

Integrated comfort and billing service

• Project lead: Energiesprong UK

Dr Zack Gill (Net zero technical analyst, Energiesprong UK):

At the moment, retrofit isn’t fair and it’s not equitable.

If you happen to be a resident who’s lucky enough to have a high quality retrofit done on your home, excellent.

That gives you the comfort that you need in your home. But your neighbour who hasn’t been retrofitted doesn’t have any of those positives.

What we’ve spent our time working on is, how to do retrofit at scale.

We need all homes to be brought up to good net zero standards.

The Comfort Plan is our pay-as-you-save mechanism to recover that cost. The Energiesprong UK Comfort Plan is a cost recovery mechanism to enable landlords to recoup some of their capital that they’ve spent on retrofit, paid for by the energy savings that the residents are making.

The residents still make a saving, so they should make at least 20% saving on what they were spending before.

And that enables the landlord to recover some of that capital cost in the long run.

[Caption: Additional reflections on the role of the Heat Pump Ready programme]

Alex Godsell (Founder, Fornax):

Heap Pump Ready has been transformational for us. The grant has enabled us to really bring our vision to life from a technology standpoint, and demonstrate that that works in the real world.

And it’s enabled us to do that in a very short space of time of less than a year. We really wouldn’t be where we are today without Heat Pump Ready.

[Music]

[Caption: The Heat Pump Ready programme was funded by the Department for Energy security and Net Zero as part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio 2021 to 2025 (NZIP), a £1 billion fund that aimed to accelerate the commercialisation of low-carbon technologies, systems and business models in power, buildings, and industry.]

Improving heat pump efficiency through technology innovation

Heat Pump Ready Film E

Transcript

[Music]

Will Rivers (Associate Director, Heat Decarbonisation, The Carbon Trust):

Heat Pump Ready is part of the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which aims to set the UK on a path to a low carbon future and cut the costs of us getting there.

Heat Pump Ready supported 45 innovation projects to accelerate the scale and pace of heat pump deployment in homes, cost effectively.

[Caption: Improving heat pump efficiency through technology innovation]

This video focuses on innovation and heat pump technology.

[Caption: What problem are we trying to solve?]

Adrian Richardson (Director, Clear Blue Energy):

We really need a massive increase in the adoption of heat pumps. And that will require, in our opinion, a much stronger customer proposition. And really that stronger customer proposition needs to come through better economics of the system. If the system is more efficient, then it will reduce running costs relative to a gas boiler.

Trevor Davis (Commercial Director, Fetu):

Efficiency is number one. Efficiency and performance of the heat pump.

If you can achieve very high coefficients of performance (COPs), you’re not only reducing the operating cost for the user, you’re also impacting the need to reinforce the grid as well, because there’s less overall power demand required for the nation.

Andreas Fechs (R&D Project Manager, Kensa):

Being able to store heat is the key thing, to give the consumer the chance to utilise cheaper night-time tariffs and, on a national basis, you can take the load off the grid.

Ren Kang (Head of Operations and Research, Mixergy):

If you look at the heat pump deployment, there are 2 major issues. One is the capital costs, the cost of installing it, the hardware costs.

And the second is operational costs. And then we kind of tackle both issues through this project.

[Caption: What is the solution that you developed through your Heat Pump Ready project, and what results has it had?]

Box: The Flexible Heat Pump

• Project lead: Clear Blue Energy Limited
• Partners: Sourcethermal, University of Liverpool, Pragmatic Energy

Adrian Richardson (Director, Clear Blue Energy):

All heat pumps have residual heat that can be recovered within the cycle.

We are storing that residual heat within the flex store in the system. And then we can use that heat as the source for the evaporator in the heat pump system during a discharge mode.

We’re targeting a 20% improvement in coefficient of performance of the system. And that means a 20% reduction in running costs for customers.

The flexible heat pump that we’ve developed can deliver high water flow temperatures to use existing radiators, to minimize the impact and the disruption for customers.

If we’re able to deliver that then that makes a tremendous difference in terms of the customer proposition.

Box: Natural Refrigerant based heat pump (NATURALHEAT)

• Project lead: Fetu

Trevor Davis (Commercial Director, Fetu):

Fetu is derived from Fenton turbine. The isotropic efficiency and volumetric efficiency of the compressor means that we can achieve up to 3 times the current COP, which means effectively getting the same heat for one third of the power consumption, which is massive.

You can actually reverse the situation where heat from a heat pump is actually cheaper in terms of operational cost than heat from a gas boiler.

Box: Highly Flexible Storage Heat Pump (HPSHP)

• Project lead: Kensa Heat Pumps Ltd
• Partners: MTC, PNDC University of Strathclyde

Andreas Fechs (R&D Project Manager, Kensa):

Normally you would have your refrigerant circuit and you would use a heat exchanger to heat up water.

What we are doing is we are going directly into the phase change material, into the actual heat storage directly with the refrigeration circuit. That improves the efficiency and saves some space.

The other part was super heat recovery. Super heat recovery means that we can store this part of the heat at a higher temperature than the rest, which means we have a higher temperature available for hot water. And we have the bigger storage available for space heating. And that makes it more efficient because you do not have to heat your entire heat storage up to the temperature required for hot water, which is a lot higher than what you need for heating.

Box: MESH Making Efficient Systems around Heat Pumps

• Project lead: Mixergy Ltd
• Partners: Centrica PLC, Vaillant Group UK Ltd

Ren Kang (Head of Operations and Research, Mixergy):

For the heat pump installation, you always have to have a buffer vessel for the space heating system and hot water tank for hot water.

We effectively combine the two into one hot water system. And then that reduces your CapEx and installation hassles. And then through better communication with the heat pump, we increase the energy efficiency of the heat pump. We increase the operation efficiency.

[Caption: Reflections on the Heat Pump Ready programme]

Ren Kang (Head of Operations and Research, Mixergy):

The Heat Pump Ready project has been quite important for the company to deploy the systems around the heat pump and then develop the relevant technology to increase the efficiency of the heat pump systems.

Through this project, we had the opportunity to work with one of the largest UK housing developer to develop and validate this technology.

Adrian Richardson (Director, Clear Blue Energy):

Being involved in the Heat Pump Ready programme has really transformed the Flexible Heat Pump Development. It’s moved from a development in an academic environment where the invention has been proven.

The concept has been proven. The Heat Pump Ready project has allowed us to take that to a product that is now ready to go into manufacturing and go into market, and that’s been done in a very short space of time.

[Music]

[Caption: The Heat Pump Ready programme was funded by the Department for Energy security and Net Zero as part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio 2021 to 2025 (NZIP), a £1 billion fund that aimed to accelerate the commercialisation of low-carbon technologies, systems and business models in power, buildings, and industry.]

Making heat pumps work in more homes

Heat Pump Ready Film F

Transcript

[Music]

Will Rivers (Associate Director, Heat Decarbonisation, The Carbon Trust):

Heat Pump Ready is part of the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which aims to set the UK on a path to a low carbon future and cut the costs of us getting there.

Heat Pump Ready supported 45 innovation projects to accelerate the scale and pace of heat pump deployment in homes, cost effectively.

This video focuses on innovation and heat pump technology.

Adrian Richardson (Director, Clear Blue Energy):

There’s lots of boilers, 21 million boilers installed out there in the UK, and retrofitting to replace those boilers in existing properties is probably the more challenging market segment for heat pumps in future.

Russell Murchie (Founder, Nusku):

If someone’s gas boiler breaks, what are their options? The majority of the time, people are going to prefer a gas boiler replacement.

So, we’re trying to make the airsource heat pump more desirable, so it requires no space within the home and delivers a cheaper, better install than is currently available.

Ren Kang (Head of Operations and Research, Mixergy):

If you look at the conventional monobloc system, it’s very big and sits outside. The installation just becomes impossible for those highly populated areas, where it’s got high rises and small dwellings, or new build with small dwellings.

Kyle Carmichael (Thermoelectric Conversion Systems):

A traditional heat pump uses something called a vapor compression cycle. It has a compressor which is quite a big noisy component, pumps gas and liquid round a loop.

By getting rid of this kind of vapor compression cycle, we have an opportunity to really make the system smaller, more compact, lighter.

Richard Barwick (Director, RJ Barwick):

Some homes in social housing stock are harder to treat, and will be more expensive than maybe some of their other homes at the other end of the spectrum.

We don’t believe that a heat pump on its own is the solution for those particular type of housing.

[Caption: What is the solution that you developed through your Heat Pump Ready project, and what results or impact has it had?]

Box: The Flexible Heat Pump

• Project Lead: Clear Blue Energy Limited
• Partners: Sourcethermal, University of Liverpool, Pragmatic Energy

Adrian Richardson (Director, Clear Blue Energy):

All heat pumps have residual heat that can be recovered within the cycle.

We are storing that residual heat within the flex store in the system. And then we can use that heat as the source for the evaporator in the heat pump system during a discharge mode.

The flexible heat pump that we’ve developed can deliver high water flow temperatures to use existing radiators, to minimize the impact and the disruption for customers.

Box:

Nusku fully UK designed and manufactured heat pump for distressed purchases accelerator

• Project Lead: Nusku Ltd
• Partners: University of Salford

Russell Murchie (Founder, Nusku):

Nusku developed a airsource heat pump replacement for a gas combi boiler.

Everything that you need for a gas boiler replacement is sitting outside the home, so you don’t need to give up any space within the home. And you release space in the home where your gas boiler was.

We’ve got something which is faster and easier to install, less disruptive to the home, better for the installer.

The homeowner sees the benefit in that the overall product price is cheaper.

Box: CUBEX

• Project Lead: Mixergy Ltd
• Partners: Harlequin Manufacturing Ltd

Ren Kang (Head of Operations and Research, Mixergy):

CUBEX will provide a solution for the small properties and high-rise blocks where they want to electrify their heating and they have a difficulty implementing heat pumps.

Our unit is much more compact, it sits within the airing cupboard, and you just need tube ducting going outside. That gives you both hot water and space heating.

Box: Archetypal heat pump retrofit for 175,000 non-trads

• Project Lead: RJ Barwick
• Partners: Energiesprong UK, Gravesham Borough Council

Richard Barwick (Director, RJ Barwick):

The first step is to reduce the heat demand through insulation or the fabric first. So the envelope around the house. And the result of that would be a home that is far more efficient; probably reduce the heat demand by about 75%.

Then we would then move on to the services, such as a heat pump, coupled with solar PV panels and a battery.

And in Kent, we’re doing the Zero Bills pilot with Octopus Energy Systems and Clarion Housing Group. What they’re saying is they’ll guarantee zero bill if the installation is completed as per the designs.

Box: 2 stage heat pump with greywater energy recovery

• Project Lead: Thermoelectric Conversion Systems Ltd

Kyle Carmichael (Thermoelectric Conversion Systems):

At TCS, we’re using thermos electrics, which are a different type of heat pumping technology. Simpler, solid state.

It just has to be a little unit, the size of a small microwave, maybe.

It’s quite flexible in how you place it.

So, you have the this heat pumping unit that can sit on a counter in a cupboard, and you can just pipe that to your heat source, with some standard copper or PVC piping.

That offers opportunities for really flexible installs, really useful for smaller homes where there’s not a lot of space or where the noise of a traditional heat pump would get in the way.

[Caption: Reflections on the Heat Pump Ready Programme]

Russell Murchie (Founder, Nusku):

The heat ready program has been really useful in 2 ways.

One, it’s really accelerated our development time. Without it, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Secondly, we’ve been speaking with a lot of the other people on the programme, seeing their experiences. That’s helped feed into what we’re doing and just understanding the wider industry.

Kyle Carmichael (Thermoelectric Conversion Systems):

Heat Pump Ready has been really useful to us. The conferences and networking opportunities, just to meet like-minded people and understand what they’re doing in their segments of the market, understand some of their findings.

It’s been invaluable.

[Music]

[Caption: The Heat Pump Ready programme was funded by the Department for Energy security and Net Zero as part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio 2021 to 2025 (NZIP), a £1 billion fund that aimed to accelerate the commercialisation of low-carbon technologies, systems and business models in power, buildings, and industry.]

Improving the customer journey

Heat Pump Ready Film G

Transcript

[Music]

Will Rivers (Associate Director, Heat Decarbonisation, The Carbon Trust):

Heat Pump Ready is part of the government’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which aims to accelerate the pace and the scale of decarbonisation in the UK and reduce the costs of us getting there.

Heat Pump Ready supported 45 innovation projects across a range of themes in the heat pump sector.

[Caption: Improving the customer journey]

Box:

Catalyst - Accelerating the heat pump journey

• Project lead: EDF
• Partners: Daikin Airconditioning UK Ltd, SPEN, University of Sheffield

Andy Lawrence (Net Zero Innovation Lead, EDF):

The tool will bring everything into one convenient location for the consumer, always give them the next best action, and everything is a click away.

Box:

Thermly

• Project lead: VIA Analytics Ltd
• Partners: Daedalus Environmental Ltd

Gareth Robertson (Founder, Thermly):

You can go through a very simple process of actually tailoring a report to your own home.

You’re given a choice of installers, right through to the point of booking, conducting a survey and then an installation and paying on platform. So end to end.

Box:

Glowmarkt

• Project lead: Hildebrand Technology Ltd
• Partners: Richard Carmichael Research & Consulting Ltd, Build Test Solutions Ltd, NJV Ltd, Davies and McKerr Ltd, SE2 Ltd

Jane Wilson (COO, Hildebrand):

We’re building a database of case studies. So you can do what’s called peer-to-peer learning now, so you can learn from others experience.

Box:

EST MCS Heat Pump Consumer Journey

• Project leads: The MCS Service Company, Energy Saving Trust Ltd

Inga Jirgensone (Business and Market Development Director, Energy Savings Trust):

For this heat pump ready project, we are combining the Energy Saving Trust expert impartial advice with the MCS quality assurance and consumer protection.

Box:

Smart Temperature Automation Technology

• Project lead: Passiv UK

Ian Rose (Sales & Strategy Director, Passiv UK):

Lots of energy suppliers are starting to provide heat pump specific tariffs. And what those tariffs are doing is they’re shifting the price of your power at different times of the day.

And what we’ve done is we’ve put all the intelligence into the controls. We automate all of that on behalf of the consumer so they can enjoy the low-cost tariff while also enjoy enjoying a comfortable home.

Box:

Intelligent airsourcing to net zero

• Project lead: Wondrwall Ltd

The overall goal of the project was to take a heat pump and align it to renewable energy and the variations of the energy grid.

Box:

THOM - Total Home Optimisation Management

• Project lead: Gen Game
• Partners: Evergreen Energy Ltd, Chameleon Technology Ltd, TalkTalk, EnAPPsys Ltd, University of Salford (Energy House)

Tom Moore (Head of Product and Assurance, Chameleon Technology):

We are optimising the heat pump to operate within the context of other in-home technologies such as solar or storage or an electric vehicle. And making sure that the heat pump is delivering the best value that it can for the homeowner.

[Caption: Remote monitoring and diagnostics]

Box:

Digitising the customer journey of heat pumps in social housing

• Project lead: Switchee Ltd
• Partners: Leeds Beckett University, Daikin Airconditioning UK

Ian Hutton (Director of Product Engineering, Switchee):

The project we’re working on is looking at the part of the heat pump journey post installation to not just make sure that people accept heat pumps into their homes, but to make sure that everybody is getting the benefits they expect from those heat pumps after installation.

Box:

HomelyLifetime

• Project lead: Homely Energy

Jamie Elliot (Managing Director, Homely Energy):

If you’ve got a portfolio of heat pumps and, let’s just say 100 heat pumps that you’ve installed, you can log into the Homely Connect platform and see them all there. And it will also send you alerts about what’s working and what’s not working potentially.

Box:

Guru Smart Heat Pumps

• Project lead: Guru Systems Ltd

Casey Cole (CEO, Guru Systems):

Remote monitoring and diagnostics is where you can remotely see how well an energy system is working. And by having that remote access to data, you can also enable innovative commercial models like ‘Comfort as a Service’ because you’ve got the data and the control to allow those models to be to be offered to residents.

[Caption: Survey and design improvements]

Box:

Heatly

• Project lead: Heatly

Griff Thomas (Managing Director, Heatly):

We’ve developed a one-stop platform to enable the streamlining of heat pump survey design and installation, from what’s traditionally been a very paper-based process to something that’s entirely digital.

We think it would take around about 15 to 20 minutes to survey and build a full digital twin of a typical 3 bed semi-detached property.

Box:

Right Sizing Heat Pumps

• Project lead: Hoare Lea
• Partners: City Science Corporation, Purrmetrix, Places for People Group Ltd

Hermione Crease (Co-founder, Purrmetrix):

What we’re proposing is an approach that actually measures the rate of heat loss in a home, takes those measurements and uses them for recommendations around the right size of heat pump and then also produces a forecast of how that heat pump might perform in the home.

Box:

MEASURED: The role of measured building performance in heat pump specification, system design and management

• Project lead: Build Test Solutions
• Partners: Veritherm UK, Elmhurst Energy Services Ltd

Richard Jack (Technical Director, Build Test Solutions):

We went and measured the heat loss of 80 buildings, and also calculated their heat loss.

Almost always it changes what the heat pump design would be, and most of the time it meant that the heat pump was smaller.

Box:

AI Smart Heat Pathway

• Project lead: Green Energy Options (geo)
• Partners: ScottishPower, Valliant

Rik Temmink (Chief Product Officer, Green Energy Options (geo)):

I think the main learning from this project is that the energy data itself on its own is good enough to give us a good estimate of whether your home is suitable or not.

Over 10 million homes already have smart meter data for at least one heating season. Therefore, there’s no wait. You can just get this data right now, get the assessment and be off and running.

[Caption: Innovative finance models for heat pump deployment]

Box:

Technology Platform for Heat Pump Subscriptions

• Project lead: Fornax Energy

Alex Godsell (Founder, Fornax):

Currently, heat pumps are unaffordable for most homeowners, and they lack the trust and confidence that they’re going to keep them warm and comfortable in their homes.

We solve the problem of cost by firstly lowering the initial cost as much as we can, but then most importantly by spreading that lower cost over a long period of time and allowing people to pay that back monthly.

We also create trust by guaranteeing that for that duration, they’re going to have a quality working system.

Box:

Integrated Comfort and Billing Service

• Project lead: Energiesprong UK

Dr Zack Gill (Net zero technical analyst, Energiesprong UK):

There is lots of money available for retrofit. It’s how you spend that money and how you recoup that money in the long term.

It’s the payback mechanisms on that financing which is I think one of the key problems, and that’s what we were trying to overcome in our project.

Box:

The Flexible Heat Pump

• Project lead: Clear Blue Energy Limited
• Partners: Sourcethermal, University of Liverpool, Pragmatic Energy

Adrian Richardson (Director, Clear Blue Energy):

We’ve got a modification of the conventional vapor compression cycle for heat pumps. It essentially, recovers waste heat from within the heat pump cycle.

We’re targeting a 20% improvement in coefficient of performance.

Box:

Highly Flexible Storage Heat Pump (HPSHP)

• Project lead: Kensa Heat Pumps Ltd
• Partners: MTC, PNDC University of Strathclyde

Andreas Fechs (R&D Project Manager, Kensa):

Being able to store heat is the key thing, by doing that, you do 2 things. You give the consumer the chance to utilise cheaper night-time tariffs and, on a national basis, you can take the load off the grid.

Box:

Two stage heat pump with greywater energy recovery

• Project lead: Thermoelectric Conversion Systems Ltd

Kyle Carmichael (Thermoelectric Conversion Systems):

We have something different. By getting rid of this vapor compression cycle, we have an opportunity to really make the system smaller, more compact, lighter. It just has to be a little unit, the size of a small microwave maybe.

Box:

CUBEX

• Project Lead: Mixergy Ltd
• Partners: Harlequin Manufacturing Ltd

Ren Kang (Head of Operations and Research, Mixergy):

CUBEX system is a small thermal store system with an integrated heat pump unit sitting on the top of the thermal store, which provides hot water as well as space heating. It will provide a solution for small properties and high-rise blocks where they want to electrify their heating.

Box:

Nusku fully UK designed and manufactured heat pump for distressed purchases accelerator

• Project Lead: Nusku Ltd
• Partners: University of Salford

Russell Murchie (Founder, Nusku):

We have made a air source heat pump that sits outside the home, and delivers a cheaper, better install than is currently available. It’s 30% cheaper and 5 times faster than a regular air source heat pump.

Box:

Archetypal heat pump retrofit for 175,000 non-trads

• Project Lead: RJ Barwick
• Partners: Energiesprong UK, Gravesham Borough Council, West Kent Housing Association

Richard Barwick (Director, RJ Barwick):

The project is based on a whole house retrofit of non-traditional, hard to treat homes. It will probably reduce the heat demand by about 75%. And obviously, the bills would then be significantly reduced, there’s a reduced risk of damp and mould, and a more comfortable warmer home to live in.

Box:

Clean Heat Streets

• Project lead: Samsung Electronics Ltd
• Partners: BOXT Limited, Gengame Limited, Oxford University Centre for the Environment (OUCE), Oxford Brookes University, Oxfordshire County Council, SMS Energy Services Ltd

Scott Greening (Alto Energy):

The Clean Heat Streets project is a heat pump installation project with a local emphasis.

Rajat Gupta (Oxford Brookes University):

Clean heat street adopts a place-based approach. It’s hyperlocal. It’s looking at house by house.

Pete (Rose Hill resident):

I’m Pete. I own this property and I’m looking to put a heat pump in today.

Clean heat streets have been huge taking me on the journey. If Clean Heat Streets weren’t doing this initiative here, then I certainly wouldn’t be putting a heat pump in today.

[Caption: Reflections on the Heat Pump Ready programme]

Richard Jack (Technical Director, Built Test Solutions):

Heat pump ready’s been pretty different in that the cohort engagement’s been really good. We’ve had the annual conferences, so we’ve met loads of people through it. We’ve made really good business relationships, commercial relationships, and learning relationships through the program.

Gareth Robertson (Founder, Thermly):

The heat pump ready programme has been immensely useful. It’s very valuable melting pot and community to be part of.

Ian Rose (Sales & Strategy Director, Passiv UK):

Heat Pump Ready has been a great experience for us. It’s established new relationships for us. It’s really given us a springboard to take the product forward.

Adrian Richardson (Director, Clear Blue Energy):

Being involved in the Heat Pump Ready programme has really transformed the flexible heat pump development.

Alex Godsell (Founder, Fornax):

Heat Pump Ready has been transformational for us. The grant has enabled us to really bring our vision to life.

Griff Thomas (Managing Director, Heatly):

Heatly was lucky enough to receive 80% of our funding from Heat Pump Ready. The company wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Heat Pump Ready.

Richard Barwick (Director, RJ Barwick):

I’m really grateful to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Carbon Trust. They’ve been incredibly supportive. It’s been fantastic. I’m really grateful for the opportunity.

[Music]

[Caption: The Heat Pump Ready programme was funded by the Department for Energy security and Net Zero as part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio 2021 to 2025 (NZIP), a £1 billion fund that aimed to accelerate the commercialisation of low-carbon technologies, systems and business models in power, buildings, and industry.]