One of Britain’s biggest boiler makers is to start manufacturing electric heat pumps to keep pace with what it describes as the biggest transformation since the switch from coal to gas devices in the 1930s.
Ideal Heating has invested £50m in transforming the manufacturing facilities at its Hull headquarters, which have produced fossil fuel boilers for more than a century.
As well as making about 500,000 gas boilers a year, the company will begin making thousands of heat pumps and invest in a “state-of-the-art” centre to train up to 5,000 staff a year to install and service them.
The boilermaker expects to manufacture up to 60,000 heat pumps a year from the factory’s new production line, which could rise as forecast demand for heat pumps grows in the coming decades.
Shaun Edwards, the chief executive of Ideal Heating’s parent company, Groupe Atlantic, said the investments sent “a clear signal” about the company’s commitment to “remodelling our business to meet the needs of our customers today and into the future”.
“With the start of heat pump production and the many other investments we’re making, we’re now pushing strongly forward with renewable technologies that will play an ever-growing role in heating the UK’s homes and commercial premises,” Edwards said.
“The transition to low-carbon heating solutions including heat pumps is the biggest transformation in the business since we moved from coal to gas-fired boilers in the 1930s,” he added.
The company’s support for heat pumps puts it at odds with many boilermakers who back an industry lobby group accused of trying to delay the take-up of heat pumps.
Lord Callanan, the minister for energy efficiency and green finance, visited the Hull factory on Friday to mark the start of Ideal Heating’s heat pump production.
The government has set an ambitious target for 600,000 heat pumps to be installed in the UK every year by 2028, which will require thousands more skilled and qualified engineers.
However, public take-up of a government grant worth £5,000 towards the cost of a new heat pump has been “disappointingly low” to date.
In a letter to ministers, the House of Lords environment and climate change committee said a shortage of installers and “insufficient independent advice” had contributed to slow take-up of heat pumps. The committee also warned that public awareness of low-carbon heating systems was “very limited” and promotion of the scheme had been “inadequate”.
Climate campaigners claim that public perception of heat pumps has been damaged by a media campaign undertaken by a lobby group representing boiler makers. The group has also piled pressure on the government to scrap new measures to speed up the rollout of heat pumps.
The Guardian revealed last month that the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA), an industry association that represents boiler manufacturers and other gas companies, including some that have branched out into heat pumps, made a submission to a government consultation calling for measures forcing the industry to install more heat pumps to be delayed to 2026.
Ideal Heating, which is a member of the EUA, declined to comment on its lobbying activities.
