Graham Wright, Chairman of the Heat Pump Association, explains why an upskilling of the heating installer base is required if the UK is to meet its 2050 net zero emissions target.

There’s no denying the fact that the heating industry is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions, but with recently imposed environmental targets in place there’s now a huge opportunity for the country to embrace greener heating technology – and installers will play a vital role in raising awareness among their clients.

The good news is that we already have the technology to lower emissions from our buildings. Heat pumps are one of these options; a well-established technology that offers immediate and substantial carbon savings compared to the heating systems being used currently.

However, as I will explain here, there’s plenty to be done by the installer base if we are to meet our goal of decarbonising the UK’s heat supply.

The current market

In 2018, heat pump sales in the UK were around 27,000 units. In order to decarbonise the heat supply, it’s thought this number will need to rise to over one million annual installations by the mid-2030s. At this rate, the deployment of the 19 million heat pumps recommended by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) in order to attain net zero by 2050 could be reached.

There are ways to help the UK increase its heat pump installations. Irrespective of the country context, heat pump markets can be encouraged with a long-term, stable policy framework consisting of direct regulation, carbon taxes, planning policy and upfront financial incentives. This policy suite should work in combination with support for the certification of skills and product standards, an area in which the heat pump industry has a large role to play. With a coherent set of interventions in place, market growth barriers can be overcome to save carbon emissions and set the path to meeting net zero.

In the HPA’s recently launched vision report, Delivering Net Zero: A Roadmap for the Role of Heat Pumps, we stated that the industry’s efforts to establish wide-scale deployment of heat pumps in the UK would be delivered through three key pillars:

• Putting the consumer at the heart of change
• Upskilling the installer base to create a cohort of highly skilled low-carbon heat installers
• Working with government to ensure a supportive policy mix

We have placed an emphasis on the role of installers as they will play a crucial role in increasing awareness among their customer base. At the moment, a potential complication to the uptake of heat pumps is the need for installers to improve their knowledge and skills in regard to the technology, as consumers typically rely on the expertise and advice installers are able to provide.

Upskilling the installer base

Without the upskilling of the installer base and improvement in the knowledge of the low-carbon heating systems available, the progress in deployment of low-carbon heat could be hampered.

The installation of heat pumps requires considerations on top of those typically carried out for traditional heating systems, such as gas boilers. There is, for example, a need to size heat pumps more carefully according to the heat demand of a building. Heat emitters often need to be upgraded to work with lower flow temperatures and hydraulic balancing is carried out to ensure that the distribution of water in heating systems is optimised.

These methods would greatly benefit the performance of traditional heating systems and should already be completed. Hydraulic balancing, for example, is always needed to ensure a heating system is working optimally, however these traditional heating types are not as sensitive to these works being carried out, and can often be overlooked or thought of as unnecessary. A high proportion of current heating installers are therefore likely required to upskill to be able to install low-carbon heating systems, such as heat pumps.

There’s potential to tap into current air conditioning installers, who have some of the skill set needed to install heat pumps. For example, these installers will be particularly beneficial for installing split systems requiring refrigeration pipework. The majority of installers are likely to come from the current boiler installer base. As more traditional methods of heating are phased out, these installers will find a need to retrain to be able to install the new technology. While these workers already have many of the skills needed to install such systems, there will be a need to upskill upon these to ensure that the installation of heat pump technologies is carried out to a high standard.

In addition to current installers, there’s also a responsibility to ensure new entrants to the installer base are adequately trained and possess the skills they will need in the long term. The HPA supports the offering of apprenticeships to encourage the younger generation of installers to develop their skill base and ensure the quality of heat pump installations is high, the knowledge of the benefits the technology can bring is commonplace, and there are sufficient installer numbers to scale up deployment to the levels required to meet net zero by 2050.

The heat pump industry is ready to meet the upskilling challenge by providing the delivery of training through the development of suitable qualification schemes and administration of this, however it’s crucial there’s enough interest from people wanting to undergo this training. This is reliant on a firm commitment from the government to indicate that low-carbon heat is the ‘direction of travel’ and fossil fuel heating will be phased out.

Plan ahead

A clear signal is needed to incentivise current installers to retrain and upskill to possess the skills to install heat pumps. Without a strong message that this is the direction the market is heading, installers already operating in the heating sector will not see a need to retrain. However, with confidence in way the market is heading, installers will want to ensure they’re ready to make the most of the shift to the installation of heat pumps. Then they’ll plan ahead to retrain, and there will be enough installers to meet the necessary growth of the heat pump market.