This article is a month old, but similar things are happening in many European countries.
The most frustrating thing with heat pumps is how little help the government are providing. They will cost a fortune to the consumer, especially in houses that need existing heating systems altered to be compatible.
We need better grants and funding. Way better.
The trick is to just install good AC units (multisplit) and rip out the old boiler piping. They have the most optimal heat exchanger for a small area. Unless you have in floor radiant heat, of course.
All of the climate reports for the uk suggest we will need air conditioning 10 times more and our heating will be needed less. So the future should absolutely be in air conditioning and two way heat pump systems
They are also significantly cheaper then upgrading the existing boiler installs. At least in Germany that’s the case, and we have a ton of bodged installs that work but are far from efficient.
Just because the government pays for it, it isn’t free money. Home owners should pay, not society. And they shouldn’t be forced. If they wish, they may have cold homes without much heating.
We should probably stop subdising fossil fuel companies so much by this arguement. I’d rather my tax pounds went to subsidising heat pumps than fossil fuels.
The UK government has given £20bn more in support to fossil fuel producers than those of renewables since 2015, the Guardian can reveal.
From 2020 to 2021 they received an extra £1bn support from the government compared with 2020, a 10.7% increase. For renewable energy in the same year, total support for projects increased by just £1m, or 0.01%.
The effects from government subsidies for heat pumps are diverse and I have a hard time sorting them into good/bad buckets:
- The environmental damage incurred within a country is reduced compared to the situation without the subsidy. (Although that is only true if the additional disposable income freed by the subsidy isn’t used for environmentally harmful activities.) This benefits everyone, but especially low-income households who not only tend to live closer to toxic oil/gas infrastructure but also have less money for climate and environmental adaptation.
- Since richer people tend to have more CO2-intensive lives, the first people who are able to use the subsidy may actually some of the worst offenders.
- There is less pressure on the often imported goods gas/oil and less pressure on the scarce goods wood/coal. This may reduce their price, making them more affordable to poorer people. Conversely, it may also lead to economies of scale breaking down or the market situation forcing enough actors off the market that a monopoly forms, thus raising prices.
- There is a similar effect for heat pumps themselves: They may become more affordable due to economies of scale being realized. They may also be inflated in price due to the government subsidies allowing manufacturers to sell overpriced goods.
- Since poor people are neither home-owners nor in possession of enough money to be able to get the government subsidies, the subsidies clearly redistribute from the poor to the rich.
- Rentors will likely enjoy lower running costs for their heat (although its likely that their rent itself is increased at least in the initial years).
I would clearly favor an earlier, forced, unsubsidized phase-out for home-owners within certain income brackets … but society has ways to make sure these things never happen (aka rich people’s influence on media/politics). So subsidies for everyone it is, I guess.
Yeah - Germany had this happen as well
Just set them on fire to stay warm.
I’m curious…are the heat pumps being pushed in the eu/uk water heaters or forced air systems which are common here in the US?
Here in Germany, people usually use hydronic heating and it’s probably gonna stay that way. However, people are waking up to the reality that A/C systems are becoming more relevant, so some people have started to install split A/Cs for heating and cooling. I think there are no subsidies for that though.
In Germany newly installed heating will have to run with at least 65% renewable energy by law. How you achieve that is your decision. All electrical forms of heating check that box due to our electricity mix.
No, sales of new heating systems in regions with a municipality heating plan or in a new built house in a new development has to meet his. The heating plan has to be finished by 2026 for cities or by 2028 for everybody else. Also district heating is also an option and gas heating using hydrogen or biogas are also option, even whne they do not have the required 65% green gas content.
The question was “what kind of heart pumps are being pushed” not “what are the precise circumstances under which you have to switch out your heating?”
Any politician who takes a meeting with lobbyists is a traitor to their country.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
He told the Guardian that 2026 was a “sensible timeframe” because the government’s current proposals would hit gas boiler companies with fines for failing to install enough heat pumps, without putting in place the mechanisms necessary to allow them to sell more.
The limit on grants would act as a “ceiling” on the number of heat pump installations in private homes, Foster said, making fines on the gas boiler industry almost inevitable.
The EUA, with the help of a Birmingham PR firm, the WPR Agency, has also undertaken a campaign in the media that highlights some of the potential difficulties with installing heat pumps, evidence amassed by DeSmog suggests.
This is viewed by experts as problematic, because more than 40 studies have found hydrogen to be unsuitable for home heating, as it is expensive, there are issues with its efficiency, and using it in the UK’s leaky gas networks presents potential safety problems.
He said EUA had not lobbied the government against a ban on gas boilers, and said that in a personal capacity as chair of a fuel-poverty community-interest company he had approved projects to fund more than 11,500 heat pump installations.
A spokesperson told the Guardian: “We changed the wording to better reflect the work we are doing for the EUA – that the country does not have to make a binary choice between heat pumps and hydrogen, we will need both to become net zero.”
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