Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | MAY 2022 | 19 Heat The Future of Heat Conference Headline Sponsor: Gemserv 'Now is the time' for mass heat pump market Concerns arising from the energy crisis make it an ideal time for heat pumps to become a mass market product, an indus- try head suggested. Aimee Clark, Octopus Energy's head of commercial, discussed how to scale up heat pump installations from around 30,000 annually, compared to 1.7 million gas boilers. Clark said it is very much "eco-warriors" who are willing to go above and beyond, to pay more to get a heat pump and have what is normally a "pretty shoddy experience". She said as well as installers not yet hav- ing the scale or bandwidth to optimise the processes, they do not have the incentives either because quite a lot of money has been available through the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). She continued: "Fast-forward to now and energy is on the news every day, unfor- tunately. It's really coming to the forefront of people's minds. We also have the boiler upgrade scheme, which makes it simple for people and brings it to that cost parity. So now is the time to move into that mass mar- ket, but to do that we need to take a very different approach." Octopus has committed to train 1,000 engineers at its 24,000 sq Ž research and development centre in Slough, Berkshire, while also looking at ways to bring down costs and make heat pumps work for more homes. Clark said Octopus is applying general principles that have worked for other sec- tors in the past. "The first is on standardisation, so being really focused on those two to four-bed mid-century homes with good insulation … We really have to focus on that so we can get really good at doing those mass market homes and pick the low hanging fruit. "Then there's optimisation. The good thing about heat pumps is that they were so poorly optimised in the past that there's lots of opportunity to improve." Also speaking during the conference was David Watson, head of energy transi- tion at gas distribution network Cadent, who stressed the importance of consumer engagement in the transition to low-carbon heat technologies. Watson said it is important to recognise that while conference delegates understood the need for change, large parts of the pop- ulation are not very engaged. He said: "They may be generally aware that burning gas in a power station is bad for the climate. But that doesn't mean to say that consumers are aware that burning gas in a boiler in their kitchen to make heat is also bad for the climate. "More worryingly, when you advise con- sumers that gas heating is actually part of the problem and you present them with a range of low-carbon alternatives, less than half of people are interested, regardless of the technology that's offered. Even fewer have even heard of the technologies before- hand, whether that's heat pumps or hydro- gen boilers. "In short, it's easy to get a feeling from reading energy Twitter, as I do, that this stuff is all just common parlance … but the reality is that people are simply not engaged in energy beyond trying to work out how they are going to pay their next bill." Pilot sees NHS issue warm home prescriptions A pilot project in which health workers prescribe warm homes for vulnerable peo- ple at risk from a lack of heat has delivered "remarkable" results. Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) has been running the project with the NHS in Glouces- tershire and energy charity Severn Wye and is now looking to roll it out further. ESC consumer insight business leader Matthew Lipson told the conference the project was borne out of concerns that of the £2.5 billion available per year in the gov- ernment's fuel poverty strategy, only 16% actually goes to fuel-poor households. He also cited the problems in identifying those who need help most and where this was best directed. He said: "We wanted to find a better way to solve this problem. What if health workers could find people in need of help and pay for their warmth? The idea being that keep- ing people well at home will ultimately save the NHS as well as being better for patients. AŽer all, the average stay in hospital is nine days." He went on to describe the Warm Home Prescription programme, in which the health service in Gloucestershire identified respiratory patients with winter fuel cost challenges and prescribed them a warm home through social prescription. This was then passed on to energy charity Severn Wye to visit them to give advice on efficient heat- ing and credit their account. He said: "The results were completely remarkable. Patients oŽen no longer needed to go to the GP and they didn't end up in A&E. Particularly during Omicron, that was very important. "It enabled the health service to add other things to help the patient, like making sure they got their jabs, and ensuring they could schedule in energy efficiency improve- ments when they needed them." Lipson said the plan was to scale up the scheme across the region and he said there was "no reason" it couldn't be rolled out to other NHS trusts. Co-Sponsors: Baringa Calor Radius Systems Switch2

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