Installer spoke to David Billingsley – Sales Director at Kensa Heat Pumps – about the current market for Ground Source Heat Pumps in the UK, the new Shoebox NX heat pump, and the opportunities for installers:
Q: The latest Boiler Upgrade Scheme figures show that the vast majority of heat pumps installed under that initiative are Air Source. What is the opportunity for Ground Source?
David: “There is an education piece that the industry needs to do with consumers. When they hear ‘heat pump’ they think air-to-water. We have a network of installers that are already fitting Ground Source and have been for decades. They’re taking calls from the public who don’t know anything about Ground Source, so they’re turning those jobs away. It’s great that the heat pump message is getting out there, but we need to make people more aware of the advantages of Ground Source because the opportunity is huge.”
Q: What are the benefits of Ground Source heat pumps?
David: “The new build market is more tuned into renewables than retrofit, and that’s where Ground Source has a big role to play.
“It started with new build social housing, but it’s now accelerating in the private sector with housebuilders and developers. When building houses, they’re used to putting in the essential infrastructure – water, waste, broadband, telecoms, and gas. Now it’s not gas, it’s boreholes and a ground array. Every new build development should be fitting a ground array and ground source really. Many already are, and that will go up as we move into the Future Homes Standard.
“When you look at the government targets of 600,000 heat pumps a year, that is a big number, but it’s easily achievable. Let’s say we get to 200,000 new builds a year, if they’re fitting Ground Source or Air Source, that’s a huge number, and that’s without any of the retrofit market. This is technology that we’ve been installing for decades and we know works.”
Q: What is the new Shoebox NX Ground Source Heat Pump?
David: “We launched the original Shoebox 11 years ago for social housing, and it was well-received. It was small, and well-priced, with a respectable COP (Coefficient of Performance) of 3.
“The Shoebox NX is a real step up. It’s small but powerful and can achieve a COP of 4.36. Gas boilers typically operate at 0.9.
“We’ve designed this to be as mass-market as possible, like the combi boiler is. It suits new build, it suits social housing flats, and it suits a 19th-century Victorian terrace, it’s at that sweet spot.
“It requires a cylinder but the units are very compact, and it can heat water to over 60oC without the need for an immersion heater. It can also provide passive cooling to cool homes during the summer at a much lower cost than air conditioning.
“For installers, if you think about their job now, the majority work with combi boilers which are powered by the gas grid. Installers didn’t put that gas grid in and they don’t work on that part of it, they work on the appliance in the house. This is what we’re going for with the Shoebox NX. When the ground array is installed, the Shoebox draws power from that, the installer goes in and works on the appliance, the cylinder, the pipes, the controls, and all the things that they know best. That’s what we need to get this mass adoption of low-carbon technology.”
Q: How do installers get training to work with Ground Source?
David: “We’re a UK company, based in Cornwall, and we’ve been manufacturing Ground Source Heat Pumps since 1999. It might be new to consumers and some installers, but for us, this is tried-and-tested technology, and we want to help installers get trained to add this to their offering.
“We want to flood the market with the right information so we offer free training to installers. For installers, they can head to our website and book on a one-day training course in one of our centres. Before you go in, we’ll ask you to do a few checks, watch some videos, and read some case studies so our training team know who you are and what you’re most interested in.
“90% of the time, installers come in because they’ve had an enquiry or booked a Ground Source project, and we give them the confidence to provide that service. Our training and technical team look to take the hassle out of those first installs. We’ll talk them through everything, the compliance, the products, how to install, so when they go on that first job, they know what it is, how much it weighs, where the connections are, and are already used to the product.
“We eliminate all that potential stress. This way, we know it’s been connected correctly, and they’ve followed the schematic. We see every step of the installation before we sign it off. Then they book in a commissioning slot and we can make sure it’s all ready to hand over to the customer.
“We also set up a WhatsApp connection so they can pop us across photographs and videos, and we can just check it. Most of the time, it’s all correct and we tell them that’s an amazing job, but that safety net is there for them. Then, as a thank you for bringing us their project, we will give them a £250 cashback voucher after their first install, which is an added bonus.”
For more information about Kensa’s range of products and training offering, please visit: https://www.kensaheatpumps.com/
