Why heat pumps are not just for houses

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) recently published the 7th Carbon Budget, which is a report to government on how the nation can get to net zero by the legally binding target of 2050.

The next step is the 21 May when the CCC will publish a methodology report showing how they got to these numbers.

This is followed by an Annual Report on 26 June which will provide a summary on the UK’s Progress towards net zero, measuring projections from CB7 against current Government policy to see if we are on track and where there are any gaps.

The Government must bring in legislation based on the CCC recommendations by 30 June 2026, although it is likely that they might choose to do so sooner.

A pathway not a target

There is a lot in the 7th Carbon Budget (CB7), but one of the first things to notice is that it is proposing that we abandon the previous government target of installing 600,000 heat pumps a year.

Instead, the CCC is setting out a pathway that aims to get us from 60,000 heat pump installations in 2023, to 450,000 a year by 2030 and around 1.5 million a year by 2035.

Getting to 450,000 heat pump installations a year by 2030 gives us 5 years to really make an impact. 

And this is where I believe we need to change the narrative slightly as the broad assumption across the board, seems to be that we are talking about 450,000 installations into homes.

Commercial premises

We do need to tackle the millions of houses across the country that are still using gas heating as this will help us get closer to net zero.

But we also have a major challenge facing us with over two million commercial buildings which also gives us a tremendous opportunity.

A quick reading of the 69-page Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data Framework (ND-NEED), 2024, throws up two telling facts about the commercial sector:

Firstly, we are not building that many new commercial buildings with construction severally affected by the pandemic, so we are simply not going to build our way to net zero – even if we could or wanted to replace every building!

That means that the overwhelming majority of commercial properties will need work and upgrading to reduce their carbon footprint.

The second thing that the Report highlights is that non-domestic consumption of gas has stayed roughly the same since 2012 – at around 160 TWh per year.

So, the real challenge is retrofitting these two million buildings which offers us a real and significant opportunity for decarbonisation.  

Buildings account for around 40% of energy use, producing 1/3 of carbon emissions, so if we can find ways to switch these buildings to electric heating when can lower overall consumption and help everyone reduce their carbon footprint.

We know that the technology to help with this required reduction already exists in the form of heat pumps, which can capitalise on the increased use of renewable power generation and a 'cleaner' grid.

Changing more commercial buildings to more sustainable systems will have a dramatic impact in helping transform society without fundamentally changing the way we all want to live.

Getting to 450,000 heat pumps

A colleague of mine was trying to find a simple way of explaining the importance of commercial buildings in decarbonising the nation and I’m not quite sure whether his maths is too simplistic, but in essence it goes as follows:

A commercial heat pump installation can be anything from supplying heating to a dentist practice, or an office block, a hotel, a school, or an entire leisure centre. That can result in a small installation of around 40-50kW of heating, right up to something that is supplying 1,000kW or more.

So, there isn’t a typical commercial installation, but broadly looking at the types of buildings and the technologies available, we can estimate that an ‘average’ commercial heat pump installation equates to around 15 residential ones.

There are around 1.6 million gas boilers sold domestically each year, which is why housing is such an important focus in the decarbonisation debate.

There are also around 35,000 commercial heating opportunities each year and whilst not all of these will be suitable for a heat pump, an estimated 30,000 commercial buildings could be fitted with heat pumps each year.

Using the simple maths of my colleague:

• 1 commercial heat pump = 15 domestic heat pumps
• 30,000 commercial installations a year = 450,000 domestic equivalents

So, we can get to the 450,000 heat pumps a year – without even fitting a single home!

Commercial leads the way

The other thing that jumped out of the CCC CB7 Report for me, was the increasing role that buildings must play if we are to get anywhere near net zero.

Buildings accounted for just 7% of emissions reductions in CB1, CB2, CB3, with around 55% of reductions coming from the 'greening' of the electricity grid. 

Reductions from the grid will now drop to 20% so achieving CB4 (2028), CB5 (2032), and CB6 (2038) will require a significant increase in other areas – meaning that buildings will need to jump from 7% to around 25% of overall emissions reduction to meet CB7, before settling back to around 17% after 2043.

And this is where slowly and quietly the commercial sector has been making a difference. 

The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (known as Salix Funding) has been providing grants for public sector bodies to decarbonise heating.

Phase 1 provided £1 billion between 2020 and 2022. Phase 2 added £75 million for FY 2021-2022, and the three parts of Phase 3 provided over £1.425 billion for 2022 through to 2026.

Last September, the government confirmed the continuation of the Scheme with Phase 4 helping more public buildings switch to cleaner heating and cut their emissions.

So, there is a quiet evolution taking place in our schools, Town Hall, libraries and leisure centres which highlights the important role that commercial buildings can play on the road to net zero.

The end of gas

The other thing the Report spelt out for me is that we are fast approaching the end of gas as the primary form of heating in the UK.

The CCC’s CB7 Report calls for 1.5 million heat pump installations a year within the next decade.

That equates almost exactly to the 1.6 million gas boilers currently sold and, if / when the government introduces a ban on gas boilers for new-build housing, it signifies another step towards the end of gas.

On the commercial front, we’ve noticed more and more projects switching to electric heating as investors call for ‘assets’ or buildings that will adhere to building legislation for the coming decades.

There are other considerations such as the inequality in the price of electricity and gas, which needs to be rebalanced, and the increase needed in getting heating installers to add heat pumps to their portfolio.

Overall, though, this presents a significant opportunity for the heat pump industry to increase annual sales and decrease the nation’s carbon emissions.

Chris Newman is Zero Carbon Design Team Manager