Swedish-based heat pump manufacturer Aira has launched in Britain, promising to invest £300 million before 2027, en route to sighing up one million homes here as customers.
Credit plans removing the need for multi-thousand ££ of upfront costs for homes are the firm’s intended master stroke in its goal to wean households off carbon-heavy gas.
The firm’s chairman Harald Mix laid out Aira’s pledge to decarbonise the UK at the Global Investment Summit at Hampton Court, attended by premier Rishi Sunak.
He is the latest heat pump boss pledging to inject momentum in Britain’s sluggish uptake of air and ground-source pumps, the latter requiring excavations and new pipework.
The nation still relies on 25 million fossil fuel boilers to heat homes, together accounting for 16% of CO2 emissions.
Sunak’s administration remains committed under its Boiler Upgrade Scheme to ramping up heat pump installations to 600,000 annually by 2028. Concerned that installs currently run at less than a tenth of that figure, the government earlier this year increased to £7,500 its subsidy for the new technology.
To remedy another drawback, Britain’s shortage of skilled pump installers, Aira is investing in training centres in London and in Sheffield, the latter following its purchase of All Seasons Energy. From a current UK payroll of 200 staff, the company plans expansion so it can serve one million UK homes.
Aira’s group CEO Martin Lewerth said: “The UK is a crucial market to decarbonise, being one of Europe’s most populated countries and with the lowest heat pump penetration rate of just 1%.
“We are confident Aira’s innovative offering, which includes substantial consumer cost savings, no need for lifestyle changes, and a zero upfront payment model, will be well-received. We are here to accelerate the important transition from dirty gas boilers to clean heat pumps.”
Daniel Särefjord, the company’s UK CEO, said: “Heat pumps are four times more energy efficient than gas boilers and will help people reduce their heating bills by 25%. The Government has confirmed that over 90% of UK homes are suitable for a heat pump.”
Energy security secretary Claire Coutinho said: ‘’Families should not have to choose between cutting costs and cutting emissions which is why we increased our Boiler Upgrade Scheme by 50% to £7,500 grants – making our scheme one of the most generous in Europe“.
’It’s fantastic that Aira is investing £300m in the UK heat pump market,” the minister continued.
“Their investment will also create 8,000 new jobs here in the UK, growing our economy and helping us make the green transition.”
Over a year of operation, ground source heat pumps (GSHP) are far more efficient than the air source type (ASHP) and provide around 4 times as much heat as the electrical energy to drive them, because the ground below about 13 metres is at a constant temperature, whereas ASHPs become less and less efficient as the ambient air temperature drops, so most ASHPs are fitted with electric heating back-ups for cold weather that only gives a return of 1 times for the direct electric power, so over a year a typical ASHP in the UK will give an average return of about 3 times, in Central Europe where winter temperatures are much lower than the UK, the efficiency of an ASHP may drop as low as 2 times.
To achieve a gain of 4:1 a GSHP should be connected to a bore hole as digging up the ground to a depth of say 10 metres to lay a serpentine of pipes is likely to be costly, which is why some contractors only dig down a few metres to save their cost to the detriment of the performance of the heat pump.