UK Heat Pump Network
The bulk of the UK Heat Pump network membership consists of potential users or specifiers, but that these groups are not particularly well represented amongst the active participants in the typical working groups.
The area of most interest to both groups is heating-only applications in housing and small commercial buildings, predominantly (but not exclusively) by ground-source systems. This is the green direction for the future with fuel economy.
This might be more succinctly denoted “high-efficiency electric heating” (which is not to ignore that gas-powered systems may come to have a role). This is an emerging, currently small market, mainly (but again, not exclusively) in areas without access to natural gas – and especially for social housing. Like most unfamiliar technologies, the key issues concern consumer confidence, installer accreditation and industry “capacity building” rather than research and development– though there is still scope for technical development.
Although several commercial activities are under development that are likely to help to move the market forward, the industry is small and fragmented. The UKHPN has already facilitated a number of actions to remove market barriers, mainly via the EEBPp (now Action Energy). It has also mapped out a possible way forwards on the crucial issue of accreditation and training, but lacks access to funding to put this into practice.
There is a continuing need for the UKHPN to produce and disseminate (or cause to be produced and disseminated) unbiased information on HP applicability.
Lower-priority needs that need to be kept under review are to explore and promote interest in developing activities in the areas of R&D co-ordination, commercial building applications and industrial applications.
Other bodies with apparently relevant interests are: the Low Carbon Innovation Programme of the Carbon Trust, which has a “Market Diffusion” support activity and the EST’s capacity-building activities for renewables.