10 minute read
Low-carbon heating
What’s in store for low-carbon heating?
Registered Gas Engineer looks at the future of low-carbon heating for this year and beyond, as the government continues its efforts to reduce UK carbon emissions.
The UK government set a legally binding target in June 2019 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Since then, a number of initiatives have been introduced – and existing schemes extended – as the government works to establish a pathway to eliminate emissions within 30 years.
The UK’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 2.9 per cent in 2019, according to analysis by Carbon Brief1, with a total reduction of 29 per cent since 2010. While progress has clearly been made, there is still a long way to go, and government projections show that, to meet the carbon reduction targets, emissions need to fall by a further 31 per cent by 2030.
The Sixth Carbon Budget, published by the Committee on Climate Change in December 2020, took this further, stating that the UK needs a “78 per cent reduction in UK territorial emissions between 1990 and 2035...bringing forward the UK’s previous 80 per cent target by nearly 15 years.”2
Heating and hot water generation accounts for the majority of household CO2 emissions3, and the Energy Saving Trust says these must be reduced by 95 per cent to reach the 2050 targets.
This is partly why the government announced previously that it will implement a ban on gas heating in new-build properties in the coming years, because gas boilers and other high-carbon systems remain the dominant fuel source in our homes. Instead, it hopes to encourage a mass switch to low-carbon heating systems such as heat pumps, solar panels, and new technologies including hydrogen.
Heat pumps have been slow to get off the ground in the UK, even though the technology has been a staple of European heating systems for decades. Around 27,000 heat pumps were installed in the UK4 in 2018, despite the Committee on Climate Change saying this number needs to have reached more than 1 million by the mid-2030s.5
In its report ‘UK Housing: Fit for the future?’, the Committee on Climate Change recommended: “The 29 million existing homes across the UK must be made low-carbon, low-energy and resilient to a changing climate. Homes should use low-carbon sources of heating such as heat pumps and heat networks.”6
Things are changing slowly, however. BSRIA’s latest World
Heat Pump Market Study 20197 reveals the UK has seen a significant 19.7 per cent increase in heat pump installations by volume, although still far behind the increases seen in the Netherlands (62.8 per cent) and the Republic of Ireland (47 per cent) during the same year.
With such a big mountain to climb, the government was in the process of introducing a number of new regulations as its route to achieving its carbon emission targets before COVID-19 hit, although the pandemic has delayed many of the plans.
The pandemic and subsequent lockdown led to a significant drop in carbon emissions from transport during spring 2020, but the increase in the number of people working from home led to fears that nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution would rise over this winter.
What changes lie ahead that will help the UK become a low-carbon economy once and for all? And what impact will these changes have on the work of gas engineers?
Green Homes Grant
The Green Homes Grant was announced in July 2020, with eligible homeowners in England able to claim vouchers worth up to £5,000, to be put towards two-thirds of the cost of energy efficiency home improvements in existing properties. Families on low incomes are eligible for vouchers covering 100 per cent of the cost, up to a maximum
of £10,000. The government has made £2 billion available, and expects this to fund improvements for around 600,000 households.
Boilers and cylinders are not eligible under the scheme, but homeowners can access the funding to install insulation, heat pumps or solar thermal panels. If one of these ‘primary’ measures is installed, they can then also install secondary measures such as draught-proofing, double and triple glazing, or a range of heating controls and thermostats.
The vouchers were originally due to be available in October 2020, with the scheme itself running until March 2021. The vouchers were then delayed until November 2020, and in the Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in November 2020 [see pages 10-11], the government said it will extend the deadline for redeeming the vouchers until March 2022.
Issues are already being reported with the scheme, however. To qualify for a voucher, homeowners must use an engineer who is certified with both TrustMark and the Microgeneration Certification Scheme, and also registered to be a Green Homes Grant engineer. According to government data, fewer than 2,000 engineers have signed up to the scheme, compared with the 40,000 homeowners who have so far applied for the grant.
Mark Wilkins, technology and training director at Vaillant Group, says: “Many homeowners are simply unable to find an MCS and TrustMark-certified professional who isn’t miles away from their home.”
Viessmann’s marketing director Darren McMahon agrees: “Even the most motivated and resourced businesses are currently overwhelmed with the number of accreditations, paperwork and courses they have to go on to be able to take part. This is time, money and patience that may be in particularly short supply at the moment.”
Other manufacturers have raised concerns that the £5,000 vouchers are simply not enough to encourage take up, considering the other costs involved in switching a property from boilers to heat pumps, for example.
Martyn Bridges, director of marketing and technical support at Worcester Bosch Group, says: “We admire the intent of the scheme: however, we believe the take-up will be relatively low.
What’s in store for low-carbon heating? continued
The figures recently published by BEIS state that a heat pump installation costs anything from £8,750 to more than £14,000 if changes are needed to the heating system.
“If the house has an Energy Performance Certificate banding of E, then to raise it to band C [so it is] suitable for a heat pump averages out at around £12,000, while for band F or G properties [it could be] around £19,000. So it could cost more than £30,000 to get the house ready and the
heat pump installed – the £5,000 grant is not going to be enough to sway people.”
Renewable Heat Incentive
The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is a long-running scheme to encourage take-up of renewable energy systems. Established in April 2014, it pays owners of eligible heat pump, biomass boilers and solar thermal systems every quarter, based on the amount of renewable energy generated, for seven years after the initial installation.
The domestic and nondomestic RHI schemes were both due to end in March 2021, but the Chancellor announced a 12-month extension to the domestic scheme, which will now run until 31 March 2022. Any eligible system installed and commissioned before this date will still be able to receive tariff payments for the subsequent seven years.
The non-domestic RHI has also been extended until March 2022 as a result of disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but only for those projects that are already in progress by March 2021 but that have not yet been commissioned.
To replace the RHI, the government has proposed the introduction of a Clean Heat Grant, which would come into effect from April 2022, after the domestic RHI has ended, to help households and small businesses invest in heat pumps and biomass boilers. The grant is subject to consultation, but could offer homeowners a single grant of £4,000, paid upfront. The scheme would last for two years, with total funding limited to £100 million.
Future Homes Standard
Underpinning all these schemes is the Future Homes Standard, which is due to take effect by
2025 and will, the government has said, introduce a ban on gas boilers in new-build properties.
Plans for the Future Homes Standard were consulted on in October 2019, as the first of a two-part consultation about proposed changes to the Building Regulations, including amendments to Part L and Part F.
While the full standard was never intended to be introduced until 2025, there was originally intended to be a Building Regulations update in 2020 that would begin to prepare the regulations for the mass installation of low-carbon, renewable systems. This has not happened, however. The first consultation closed in February 2020, and the government has not yet released its official response.
However, in the Ten-Point Plan, the government said: “We will seek to implement the Future Homes Standard in the shortest possible timeline, and consult shortly on increased standards for non-domestic buildings.”8
The plan also set out an aim for 600,000 heat pump installations a year by 2028. When it was first released, it stated the Future Homes Standard would be introduced by 2023, implying that the ban on gas boilers in new-build would also be brought in at this stage, although this reference has now disappeared.
The Sixth Carbon Budget, released afterwards, suggests that all new boilers should be hydrogen ready from 2025, with gas boilers phased out in all residential homes by 2033.9
While no revised timeline has been officially released, the industry now expects changes to Part L and Part F of the Building Regulations be introduced in October 2021. Exactly what these will be has not been confirmed, but manufacturers are expecting to see limits to system flow temperatures, and further CO2 emission reductions.
Andy Hooper, LG’s UK and Ireland heating manager, says: “There are two main things we’re expecting. One is that they’re going to limit the flow temperature from the boiler or heat pump to around 55°C for new-build, and also a reduction in CO2 emissions of around 31 per cent, based on previous regulations. It’s all a stepping stone to start phasing out fossil-fuel boilers.”
Iain Bevan, Daikin’s commercial director for heating and renewables, agrees that flow temperature will be a focus of the next set of Building Regulations changes. “I think it’s something that needs to happen. We have to achieve net-zero carbon, and to do that you need to get to the retrofit market, which is the biggest challenge. If they bring in the flow temperature requirement, then even if you’re fitting a gas boiler with a 10 or 12-year lifecycle, designing the system to run on lower flow temperatures will still improve the efficiency of the boiler.
“And it’s likely that, when the time comes to replace that boiler, it will need to be replaced with a low-carbon system. If you’ve already got your system designed to deal with lower flow temperatures, then that makes it work – and it’s a real opportunity for engineers.”
Changing times
What does this all mean for gas engineers? Major changes in the way we heat our homes are coming over the next decade, and 2021 will be a key year: much of the government’s roadmap towards 2025 and the new-build gas boiler ban should be announced.
Mark says: “This year may be the tipping point for the green economy to flourish. However, we need engineers to deliver energy-saving solutions as part of any green recovery. The increased demand for low-carbon solutions could spur on those who want to diversify their heating businesses to train in technologies such as heat pumps.
“It’s crucial to have enough trained professionals to install low-carbon heating technologies for a green economy to thrive.”
While gas boilers will still be operating in people’s homes for decades to come, heat pumps and other renewable heating systems are here to stay, and gas engineers may want to consider expanding their businesses to include the installation of these renewable technologies. “As we move towards this low-carbon future,” says Iain, “it’s a real opportunity for engineers to say ‘this is what we know’, and to establish themselves as consultants who can help people look at more than just the boiler – to also look at their property and how they live in it, and really give advice on how to be more efficient. Then I think people will really see the value of what heating engineers can offer.” ■
1 www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-co2-emissions-have-fallen-29-per-cent-over-the-pastdecade 2 www.theccc.org.uk/publication/sixth-carbon-budget 3 energysavingtrust.org.uk/significant-changes-are-coming-uk-heating-market 4 www.ehpa.org/fileadmin/red/09._Events/2019_Events/Market_and_Statistic_
Webinar_2019/20190624_-_EHPA_Webinar_outlook_2019_-_Thomas_Nowak.pdf 5 www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Next-steps-for-UK-heat-policy-Committeeon-Climate-Change-October-2016.pdf 6 www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/UK-housing-Fit-for-the-future-CCC-2019.pdf 7 www.bsria.com/uk/news/article/world-heat-pump-market-study-2019 8 www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-ten-point-plan-for-a-green-industrial-revolution 9 www.theccc.org.uk/publication/sixth-carbon-budget
