Notice

Heat Pump Ready Programme: Stream 1 Phase 1 projects

Updated 30 April 2024

Stream 1, solutions for high-density heat pump deployment, will support the development and trial of solutions and methodologies for the optimised deployment of domestic heat pumps at high-density.

Overview

Heat Pump Ready, Stream 1: Phase 1 has awarded a total of £2,055,202.43 to 11 projects across Great Britain. A summary of these projects is provided in the table below.

Location	Project title	Lead organisation
Newcastle, Tyne and Wear	Heat Pump Ready Newcastle	E.ON
Sunderland, Tyne and Wear	Utilita Energy Heat Pump Ready Programme	Utilita Energy
Leeds, Yorkshire	Renewable Heat Infrastructure Network Operating System (RHINOS) Leeds	Leeds City Council
Oxford, Oxfordshire	Clean Heat Streets	Samsung
Greenwich, Greater London	Greenwich Thermal Infrastructure Motivating Electrification (Greenwich TIME)	Element Energy Limited
Bristol	Bristol Heat Pump Ready	Buro Happold
Teignbridge, Devon	Project Gaia	EDF
Fenland, Cambridgeshire	PACE Financing for Heat Pumps in Rural Cambridgeshire	City Science
Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross	SAPPHIRE Solo	Power Circle Projects
Cherwell, Oxfordshire	Prosumer Model for Heat Pump Deployment in Cherwell	City Science
Bridgend	Heat Pump Ready - Bridgend	Buro Happold

Read more about Stream 1.

Newcastle, Tyne and Wear

• Location category: Urban
• Project title: Heat Pump Ready Newcastle
• Lead organisation: E.ON Energy Solutions Limited
• Contract value: £188, 546.11
• Project partners: Clean Air Ventures Limited
• Project subcontractors: Nationwide Drones, Newcastle City Council

Project overview

The Heat Pump Ready Newcastle project aims to target areas of the city with capacity for large scale heat pump roll out, and help Northern Powergrid to identify areas where grid upgrades may be necessary. Eight areas of the city will be analysed to determine the best ones to ensure heat pump deployment at scale.

The project will conduct future surveys using drone and laser scanner technology to create a digital twin of a customer’s home and garden. This approach serves to massively reduce the surveying time and disruption to a customer’s day, as well as offering right first-time data capture, improving accuracy of heat pump design and specification for customers. This will remove some barriers for consumers to install heat pumps. 

The project will build and continue to develop a portfolio of consumer propositions including Heat as a Service (HaaS) to ensure consumers have a variety of financial options to support heat pump adoption.

Sunderland, Tyne and Wear

• Location category: Urban
• Project title: Utilita Energy Heat Pump Ready Programme
• Lead organisation: Utilita Energy Limited
• Contract value: £192,860
• Project partners: No formal project partners, however project is supported by Sunderland City Council and Northern Powergrid
• Project subcontractors: Gemserv

Project overview

The Utilita Energy Heat Pump Ready Programme plans to bring together Local Authorities, Distribution Network Operators, Social Housing Providers and homeowners to find clusters of suitable properties for heat pump deployment. This will be delivered through a collaborative approach, sourcing various funding streams and designing an approach to deliver targeted support to help unlock the behavioural change required to maximise the efficiency of heat pump installations.

This feasibility study will design a methodology to open up heat pump deployment to fuel poor households by examining opportunities to consolidate and simplify the end-to-end procurement and installation process for the customer, as well developing financial support and building fabric upgrade offers, to be based on property assessments and generation of accurate heat load profiles.

If successful in proceeding to Phase 2, funding will be utilised to assess the status of each property and determine if it is heat pump ready, whilst addressing any identified issues requiring remediation before a heat pump is a viable option through working with the Distribution Network and planning officers. This collaboration between different stakeholders will ensure alignment and remove the barriers to heat pump installations at scale.

Leeds, Yorkshire

• Location category: Urban
• Project title: Renewable Heat Infrastructure Network Operating System (RHINOS) Leeds
• Lead organisation: Leeds City Council
• Contract value: £197,928.49
• Project partners: Kensa Contracting Limited, University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University, Arup, Legal & General, Parity Projects, Otley Energy, IRT Survey Ltd
• Project subcontractors: No subcontractors

Project overview

The RHINOS project in Leeds aims to reduce the lifetime costs of domestic heat pumps and associated infrastructure through innovation and deployment of shared ground arrays for heat pumps as a New Utility. This promotes an area-based approach, long-advocated by Leeds City Council, which brings several additional benefits including coordinated grid upgrades, encouraging deployment across private and social housing, and providing a catalyst for neighbourhood regeneration.

A key part of this project is to strengthen partnerships between all stakeholders in Leeds involved in heat pump technology, energy infrastructure and domestic housing stock sectors to build confidence and to provide a suitable consumer offer. The project will aim to provide an evidence-based approach that enables replicable investment pathways for similar high-density heat pump deployment across the UK and provide confidence to encourage investment and scaled-up deployment of shared ground loop heat pump solutions.

Oxford, Oxfordshire

• Location Category: Urban
• Project title: Clean Heat Streets
• Lead organisation: Samsung Electronics (UK) Limited
• Contract value: £199,614
• Project partners: BOXT Limited, GenGame Limited, Oxford University Centre for the Environment (OUCE), Oxford Brookes University, Oxfordshire County Council, SMS Energy Services Ltd
• Project subcontractors: no subcontractors

Project overview

Clean Heat Streets aims to connect local communities to local installers whilst removing frictions and costs from the current heat pump installation process. The project will work with county and city councils and with finance providers to make sure that a wide range of people within the local community are able to benefit from a heat pump.

By working with the local Distribution Network Operator, the project will identify any local network constraints and opportunities to use the flexible smart control of heat pumps to avoid the need for expensive grid upgrades and connection charges for customers. During the feasibility stage the project will develop innovative customer identification and engagement approaches, and novel strategies to reduce the cost for heat pump deployment.

If successful in phase 2, the team will work with energy suppliers, using smart metering and half-hourly settlement of the electricity used by heat pumps, to reduce suppliers’ costs and enable them to offer cheaper and a simple-to-understand tariff to customers.

By reducing the upfront and running costs, Clean Heat Streets aims to provide an answer to the common question: “why should I get a heat pump if getting a new gas boiler is easier and cheaper?”

Greenwich, Greater London

• Location Category: Urban
• Project title: Greenwich Thermal Infrastructure Motivating Electrification (Greenwich TIME)
• Lead organisation: Element Energy Limited (UK)
• Contract value: £199,170.95
• Project partners: Kensa Contracting Limited, DG Cities, Nationwide Building Society, Heat Geek Limited, OVO Energy Ltd
• Project subcontractors: I C Consultants Limited, UK Power Networks Limited

Project overview

The Greenwich TIME project aims to decouple the capital cost barrier of ground-source loops from customers to help enable high-density heat pump deployment. This will be achieved by harnessing the power of networked heat pumps distributed on a shared ground array. The project explores the potential to decouple the up-front capital cost barrier of the ground side installation from customers via financing in a manner similar to how existing domestic services are funded, and aims to develop a methodology which would enable consumers to replace their boiler with a networked heat pump in a way that is simple to understand and adopt, with minimal household disruption.

The project will design a home service package, which would be offered to households by an electricity supplier, including: a mains connection, easy appliance swap-out, and low long-term running cost. Varied consumer engagement and adoption methods will be tested to better understand the optimal service offer and the method of communication that is needed for rapid uptake.

Bristol

• Location Category: Urban
• Project title: Bristol Heat Pump Ready
• Lead organisation: Buro Happold
• Contract value: £198,167.20
• Project partners: No partners
• Project subcontractors: The Green Register, Bristol City Council, Centre for Sustainable Energy, Veritherm, Build Test Solutions, Energy Tracers CIC, University of Bristol, Bristol Energy Network, Sustainable Westbury-on-Trym, LiveWest, Places for People, BetaTeach, C Brookes Heating, Western Power Distribution.

Project overview

The Bristol Heat Pump Ready project focuses on ensuring consumers are fully supported in the transition to low carbon heat, by working collaboratively with local communities and supply chains. It will develop a service model which will be fully replicable UK-wide which leaves no one behind.

New combined energy technology and retrofit packages will be designed which will aim to reduce household bills, prevent consumers going into fuel poverty and make homes warmer and more comfortable. The project will follow a “touch it once” philosophy by using digital twin technology to appraise technical and commercial service models for a particular locality, as well as ensure electricity networks are ready for the changeover. The entire consumer journey is considered, including supporting other technologies such as electric vehicle charging solutions, which will provide best value to all network customers.

The project will also focus on developing new methods of training to encourage and support the expansion of a skilled workforce in the supply chain, which will create low carbon jobs.

Teignbridge, Devon

• Location Category: Rural
• Project title: Project Gaia
• Lead organisation: EDF Energy R&D
• Contract value: £199,143.10
• Project partners: EDF Energy Customers Limited, Urbanomy UK Limited, Devon County Council, Kensa Utilities, University of Sheffield
• Project subcontractors: Teign Energy Community, Exeter Communities Energy Organisation, Kensa Contracting, Genius Energy Labs, Enzen, University College London

Project overview

Project Gaia aims to address the upfront cost barriers of ground source heat pump installation and increase the accessibility of heat pump technology. This will be achieved by considering the feasibility of configuring heat pumps as part of an ambient shared loop array, leading to higher energy efficiencies, and maintaining consumer familiarity by following a similar business model to the existing gas network.

If successful in phase 2, it is expected that the underground infrastructure would be owned and maintained by a utility company, but individual heat pump units and tertiary systems would be owned by the consumer. This split-ownership model reduces the capital cost compared to installing an individual ground source heat pump, therefore making heat pumps a more accessible and affordable option.

Fenland, Cambridgeshire

• Location Category: Rural
• Project title: PACE Financing for Heat Pumps in Rural Cambridgeshire
• Lead organisation: City Science Corporation Limited
• Contract value: £196,935.00
• Project partners: No partners
• Project subcontractors: Peterborough Environment City Trust, Cambridgeshire County Council, Fenland District Council, Growth Guides (Apple Barn UK Limited), Lendology ·

Project overview

This project will support the development of optimised deployment of domestic heat-pumps in high-density areas; using rural Cambridgeshire as a test bed for innovative technologies to reduce costs to consumers, minimise barriers to uptake, improve repeatability of performance and understand impacts on the national grid.

The project will utilise a holistic approach to Heat Pump deployment, based on an “integrated stakeholder model”, bringing together several components of programme design, based on best-practice research.

Working with local partners and catalysing change, a place-based approach will help establish local momentum and generate community interest for Heat Pumps. Through collaborating with Cambridgeshire Retrofit Partnership, the project will evolve and disseminate best practices. The project will work closely with users to streamline the customer journey, tailored to two core user segments – those in or at risk of fuel poverty and able-to-pay home-owners. The project will translate successes observed in the US PACE programme and apply these within a UK context to stimulate uptake. The project will use a detailed and replicable geospatial process to prioritise work in communities that will receive the greatest impact.

Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross

• Location Category: Urban with significant rural
• Project title: SAPPHIRE Solo
• Lead organisation: Power Circle Projects
• Contract value: £83,870.48
• Project partners: No partners
• Project subcontractors: Connect 3, Blairgowrie and Rattray Development Trust, Geospatial Insight Ltd, Strathclyde University (Energy Systems Research Unit), MCA Renewables, Zuos Ltd, Scottish and South Energy Networks

Project overview

The SAPPHIRE Solo project will explore the provision of smart energy systems in homes that incorporate heat pump technology, battery, and Solar PV. Adopting a system approach, the smart energy system’s key benefit is to enable a switch from gas to electric heating without raising energy bills. This delivers more carbon savings and offers greater economic benefit than installing heat pumps on their own.

The project aims to understand the feasibility of aggregated installations for optimised management and generation of grid services revenues which help fund the equipment, to provide a further benefit to the consumer. The project also includes developing an approach to work with local gas service engineers, boosting install capacity and providing a key channel to market at scale.

Cherwell, Oxfordshire

• Location Category: Urban with significant rural
• Project title: Prosumer Model for Heat Pump Deployment in Cherwell
• Lead organisation: City Science Corporation Limited
• Contract value: £198,400.00
• Project partners: No partners
• Project subcontractors: Oxfordshire County council, National Energy Foundation, Growth Guides, Trust Power, Lendology

Project overview

The Prosumer Model for Heat Pump Deployment in Cherwell aims to take a holistic approach to heat pump deployment, based on a community-focused prosumer approach to energy generation. This will enable consumers to both produce and consume their own energy.

A key part of the prosumer model that will be developed will be to combine heat pump installation, retrofit and onsite energy generation, to help simplify consumer pathways to build confidence in low carbon heat technologies. This will be achieved by employing a consumer-centric approach through providing a ‘one-stop-shop’ for energy efficiency, helping consumers address barriers by engaging local communities to work collaboratively.

Bridgend

• Location Category: Urban with significant rural
• Project title: Heat Pump Ready - Bridgend
• Lead organisation: Buro Happold
• Contract value: £195,385.41
• Project partners: No partners
• Project subcontractors: Kensa, Nuvision, Challoch

Project overview

The Heat Pump Ready – Bridgend project builds on the latest thinking in Local Area Energy Planning, identifying viable deployment routes for clusters of homes that can participate in heat pump installations, to help facilitate the switch to low carbon heating technologies. This will include solutions for terraced house communities where air source heat pumps cannot be installed due to space and environmental constraints. Technologies appraised will include air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps, or heat pumps working on a shared loop system. New commercial models, including local energy market structures to drive down heat costs, will be considered. Capacity in the electricity grid network for heat pumps to be installed, as well as electric vehicle charging, will also be assessed and solutions developed to enable the transition.

The funding for this project focuses on the feasibility study, which will identify the most suitable locations for the trials that may follow, should the project be successful in Phase 2.