Heat pump campaign body lined up by government

A dedicated heat pump campaign body is being considered by government to expedite the uptake of the technology, Utility Week can reveal.

Staff at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) have contacted suppliers seeking their views on the formation of the body.

In an email seen by Utility Week, a government official describes the proposed organisation as a “Smart Energy GB-style model for heat pump deployment”.

Smart Energy GB was established in 2013 to encourage the uptake of smart meters. The feasibility of a similar body to promote heat pumps is being explored by the government’s Clean Heat team, which sits within DESNZ.

Its formation would support the government’s aim of installing 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028.

A DESNZ spokesperson told Utility Week that no decision has been made on launching a separate campaigning body for heat pumps.

Bean Beanland, director for growth and external affairs at the Heat Pump Federation, told Utility Week that he welcomed the prospect of of raising awareness for the devices, as long as it is coupled with policy changes such as the decoupling of gas and electricity prices.

“Any proposal that is going to gain traction for heat pumps is great but if it’s just an opportunity to try and spend someone else’s money doing something which lots of people are already trying to do […] I’m not sure that in itself would be of significant value,” said Beanland.

“Our industry wants to be able to turn out good quality work based on a fair price of gas and electricity and that means a fair price for electricity that reflects the generation and transmission costs and a fair price for gas that reflects the environmental damage it does.”

Richard Lowes, a senior associate at the Regulatory Assistance Project, noted that the government has this week launched a TV advert which promotes the £7,500 heat pump grant to consumers.

Lowes – who also works as a specialist advisor to the Environmental Audit Committee – told Utility Week: “It’s great that they’ve made this first step in TV advertising and it’s overdue to be honest. It’s still not enough, what they are doing.

“We still don’t have a central advice place to go to for people getting a heat pump. The Energy Saving Trust used to provide a sort of service like that around energy efficiency but it never really was focused on heat pumps because it was over 10 years ago.

“So something is needed. I think TV ads are a good first start and if they are targeted that’s great, but we also need central communication and advice around this which we just haven’t got.”

Lowes further warned about the complexities of rolling out heat pumps as opposed to smart meters which are essentially a like-for-like technology replacement. He added that the heat pump rollout is going to need much more than an awareness campaign and warned against oversimplification.

He continued: “The difficulty is that there’s always this balance between wanting independent, trustworthy advice and asking industry to do it.

“There’s also the complexity of people often not trusting government communications so perhaps an independent model does make sense but it needs a lot more consideration than simply a comms campaign for heat pumps. There’s a lot more that needs to be done around the edges.”

A DESNZ spokesperson added: “We have been taking steps to ensure people are aware of the benefits of heat pumps by launching our ‘Welcome Home to Energy Efficiency’ campaign and increasing the grants by 50% to £7,500 – making it one of the most generous schemes in Europe.

“Our latest figures show that our plan to help hardworking families make the change to cleaner heating and more stable bills is working, with the number of people applying to the government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme in December 2023 increasing by nearly 50% compared to the same month in 2022.”

Earlier this week, the government was warned about its “inappropriate” focus on heat pumps.

The Sustainable Energy Association’s (SEA) review of government heating policy, warned that too much focus on heat pumps is creating an “ineffective market” which undermines the UK’s decarbonisation efforts and risks excluding people living in high-rise buildings and businesses.

While the SEA review concludes that the government is “rightly focusing on electrification”, it warns against “strong rhetoric around the role of heat pumps” which gives the impression that they are the sole solution.

Smart Energy GB

Established in 2013 the independent, not-for-profit Smart Energy GB (SEGB) aims to encourage the uptake of smart meters among consumers and has had a number of notable ad-campaigns, such as one featuring the likeness of Albert Einstein.

Despite the campaign running for more than a decade, the latest government figures show that at the end of September 2023, there were 33.9 million smart and advanced meters in Great Britain in homes and small businesses, accounting for just 59% of all meters.

SEGB is funded by energy suppliers and analysis of the organisation’s annual reports shows that its operating expenditure between 2013 and 2022, the latest data available, was more than £300 million.