If the UK had deployed heat pumps at the same rate as some other European countries, our dependence on gas would be significantly lower this year, analysis suggests.
An assessment from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) found that if the UK had already installed the same amount of heat pumps per 100,000 people as Estonia has, domestic gas use would be 34% less than in 2021.
Gas imports in 2021 could have been cut by a fifth, the analysis found.
Heat pumps are playing an increasingly important role in heating homes in Europe, and now Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is prompting more consumers to turn to electric heating systems to reduce demand for high-cost gas.
But the UK has been lagging behind other countries, with just 63 heat pumps sold in 2021 per 100,000 people, compared with 1,583 in Estonia and 259 per 100,000 people in Poland last year.
Total numbers of installed heat pumps are also higher in most of Europe, ECIU said, with 280,000 in place in the UK, compared with 3.1 million in France and 1.3 million in Norway.
But the UK Government has brought in a boiler upgrade scheme, which aims to install 90,000 heat pumps over three years, with a £5,000 grant for air source and £6,000 for ground source heat pumps.
Heat pumps, which act like an air conditioning unit in reverse and are highly efficient, creating several units of energy for every unit they use, are seen as a key way to cut the use of fossil fuel gas to heat homes.
There are now some deals on the market in the UK that would see households able to install air source heat pumps for as little as £2,000.
And only one in 10 people say they will not install a heat pump on costs grounds when their boiler comes to the end of its natural life, polling suggests.
Overall, in a survey conducted for the PA news agency by Barclays, only around 20% of homeowners say they will not replace their boiler with a heat pump when the time comes, suggesting millions of householders are ready for the technology if the sector can supply it.
Jess Ralston, senior analyst at ECIU, said: “They’ve been dubbed freedom pumps in the US because they reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.
“The IMF has been clear that the UK is Europe’s most gas-addicted country.
“The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is essentially the UK’s down-payment on energy security.
“It’s driving down the costs to as little as £2,000 while driving up jobs for installers and manufacturers,” she said.
