Urban myths that refuse to die continue to slow heat pumps’ take-up in Britain’s homes, new research from supplier Good Energy has found.
Fully a quarter of the population believes – wrongly – that heat pumps are less efficient than gas boilers, the supplier’s survey of its customers found. In fact, modern heat pumps achieve four times the space heating effectiveness of traditional combi-boilers.
A heat pump is louder than a fridge, according to only slightly less – 23% – of respondents. Wrong again: at maximum 45 decibels, noise from heat pumps rarely exceeds that of a fridge.
The pumps work only in newer homes, say a fifth of Brits, and don’t work at all in cold weather, in the minds of 15%, unaware that 1.4 million homes in Norway are warmed even as winter temperatures drop to 15 degrees below Zero.
Heating of homes and other buildings accounts for an estimated quarter of all the country’s carbon emissions. The government has set 2028 as its deadline to be installing at least 600,000 domestic pumps every year. Attempting to increase last year’s total of fewer than 50,000 instals, over the summer it stepped up to £7,500 its heat pump grant intended to lure in householders
Good Energy is launching a bespoke ‘Winter Tips’ service for its heat pump customers. The energy supplier and installer offers remote monitoring of its devices, meaning it can identify problems as they occur.
The new Winter Tips service will provide advice and individualised data on the efficiency of customers’ installations, suggesting changes they might wish to make in their configuration so as to save energy over the colder months.
Chief executive Nigel Pocklington said: “For some unfathomable reason, heat pumps have found themselves in the front line of the culture war. As ever, truth is an early casualty.
“The constant flow of misinformation from media with poor journalistic standards, an absence of reputable data or the fingerprints of lobbyists all over them, means that the overall level of public understanding has fallen.
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