Building Engineer June 2020

INTELLIGENCE

HEATING TRIALS

Heating trials

BUILDING ENGINEER

34

E

nergy Systems Catapult runs innovation trials in its Living Lab – where 100 homes spread between Newcastle, Manchester, the West Midlands, Gloucestershire and Bridgend in Wales are fitted with smart heating systems that provide room-byroom temperature control and a wealth of data on consumer behaviour and the thermal performance of the home.

Energy Systems Catapult created a heat-as-a-service offering called a Heat Plan – where instead of buying units of energy (kWh), consumers buy hours of warmth in their home called Warm Hours.

In an industry first, two British companies successfully trialled the sale of Heat Plans to consumers. Baxi Heating UK trialled mobile phone-style bundles combining heating system and energy bills for a fixed monthly price. Bristol Energy trialled selling fixed price and pay as you go (PAYG) Heat Plans.

In addition, Energy Systems Catapult also tested the performance of hybrid heating systems that combine traditional gas boilers with an electric heat pump.

Dr Matt Lipson, Consumer Insight Business Lead at Energy Systems Catapult, said: “The UK has a target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, yet only about 5% of UK homes currently have low-carbon heating, compared to 85% with gas boilers.

Low-carbon heating is simply a step into the unknown for most households.

Consumers have concerns about their ability to get warm and comfortable at an affordable price and how to fix the system if it breaks down. Switching to new forms of purchasing can help people become more comfortable with longer-term switching to low-carbon heat sources.

34 HeatingTrials_BE June 2020_Building Engineer.indd 34

“[The Heat Plan] allows people to schedule and budget for a specific number of Warm Hours – giving them the temperatures they want, in the rooms they want, at the times they want – for a fixed weekly or monthly price… then when it comes time to replace their gas boiler, they will be more confident of switching to a lowcarbon heating system like a heat pump, district heat network or hydrogen boiler.”

The results Of the 20 households in the Baxi Heating UK trial, ten liked the mobile-style bundle and wanted to continue, and one accepted the offer of a new boiler installation. The Bristol Energy was trialled in 85 Living Lab households and offered two Heat Plan options. Using consumers’ own data, one trial priced for a fixed number of Warm Hours based on their existing heating schedule and the other trialled a PAYG option with a price per Warm Hour. All those who trialled the different plans and were in favour of switching cited improved control and comfort, and certainty of price.

Energy Systems Catapult has also undertaken trials on a hybrid heating system (combining a heat pump with an existing gas boiler), which found that: More than half of households asked in the Living Lab had never heard of heat pumps Heat pumps were installed in five of

the 100 homes in the Living Lab, creating a hybrid system Hybrid heating systems achieved the same temperatures and levels of comfort as the gas boiler alone Heat pumps delivered between 6% and 63% of the heating across the five different homes (6%, 17%, 44%, 59% and 63%) depending on how each household used their smart controls The household utilising the heat pump only 6% of the time increased that figure to 51% with some simple advice on reducing the number of manual overrides to their heating schedule, which would force the boiler to kick-in Four of the five homes trialling the hybrid system were open to removing their gas boiler and relying entirely on a heat pump if they could buy their heat as a service, such as a Heat Plan. One customer commented: “You expect to have a boiler to heat the house… (most people) don’t even realise there’s the option of any other form of heating.

When the boiler’s old you don’t think ‘is there any other alternative?’. You think ‘the boiler’s old, I’ll replace it with another boiler’.”

Read the full findings of the 2018/19 Living Lab Winter Trial at bit.ly/BEHeatTrial, or to understand how to increase the appeal of heat pumps, visit bit.ly/BEHeatPump

IMAGE: ISTOCK.COM

JUNE 2020

Can customers be persuaded to view heat as another supplied utility rather than as the result of supplied utilities?

An energy research company and two British energy firms decided to find out

18/05/2020 15:18