Heat Pump Ready Programme: successful projects

The [Heat Pump Ready Programme](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/heat-pump-ready-programme) supports the development of innovative solutions across the heat pump sector. Heat pumps are a key solution for decarbonising homes and will be critical for meeting the UK’s commitment to achieve net zero by 2050. Stream 1, solutions for high-density heat pump deployment, will support the development and trial of solutions and methodologies for the optimised deployment of domestic heat pumps at high-density. Stream 2, developing tools and technology, will support the development of tools, technology and processes to overcome specific barriers to domestic heat pump deployment. Stream 3, trial support and learning, will provide support to ensure knowledge transfer and shared learning across the Heat Pump Ready Programme. This stream will provide support to the Stream 1 projects, joining-up Stream 2 technology and tools with their the Stream 1 projects where relevant and establishing working groups to collaborate on shared elements of deployment. --- Stream 1, solutions for high-density heat pump deployment, will support the development and trial of solutions and methodologies for the optimised deployment of domestic heat pumps at high-density. ## Overview Heat Pump Ready, Stream 1: Phase 1 has awarded a total of £2,055,202.43 to 11 projects across Great Britain. A summary of these projects is provided in the table below. | Location | Project title | Lead organisation | | --- | --- | --- | | Newcastle, Tyne and Wear | Heat Pump Ready Newcastle | E.ON | | Sunderland, Tyne and Wear | Utilita Energy Heat Pump Ready Programme | Utilita Energy | | Leeds, Yorkshire | Renewable Heat Infrastructure Network Operating System (RHINOS) Leeds | Leeds City Council | | Oxford, Oxfordshire | Clean Heat Streets | Samsung | | Greenwich, Greater London | Greenwich Thermal Infrastructure Motivating Electrification (Greenwich TIME) | Element Energy Limited | | Bristol | Bristol Heat Pump Ready | Buro Happold | | Teignbridge, Devon | Project Gaia | EDF | | Fenland, Cambridgeshire | PACE Financing for Heat Pumps in Rural Cambridgeshire | City Science | | Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross | SAPPHIRE Solo | Power Circle Projects | | Cherwell, Oxfordshire | Prosumer Model for Heat Pump Deployment in Cherwell | City Science | | Bridgend | Heat Pump Ready - Bridgend | Buro Happold | [Read more about Stream 1](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/heat-pump-ready-programme-apply-for-stream-1-opportunities). ## Newcastle, Tyne and Wear * Location category: Urban * Project title: Heat Pump Ready Newcastle * Lead organisation: E.ON Energy Solutions Limited * Contract value: £188, 546.11 * Project partners: Clean Air Ventures Limited * Project subcontractors: Nationwide Drones, Newcastle City Council ### Project overview The Heat Pump Ready Newcastle project aims to target areas of the city with capacity for large scale heat pump roll out, and help Northern Powergrid to identify areas where grid upgrades may be necessary. Eight areas of the city will be analysed to determine the best ones to ensure heat pump deployment at scale. The project will conduct future surveys using drone and laser scanner technology to create a digital twin of a customer’s home and garden. This approach serves to massively reduce the surveying time and disruption to a customer’s day, as well as offering right first-time data capture, improving accuracy of heat pump design and specification for customers. This will remove some barriers for consumers to install heat pumps. The project will build and continue to develop a portfolio of consumer propositions including Heat as a Service (HaaS) to ensure consumers have a variety of financial options to support heat pump adoption. [Project report: Heat Pump Ready Newcastle](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688245e72b6fd60b7c161025/Eon_Newcastle_CP_AD_review.pdf) ## Sunderland, Tyne and Wear * Location category: Urban * Project title: Utilita Energy Heat Pump Ready Programme * Lead organisation: Utilita Energy Limited * Contract value: £192,860 * Project partners: No formal project partners, however project is supported by Sunderland City Council and Northern Powergrid * Project subcontractors: Gemserv ### Project overview The Utilita Energy Heat Pump Ready Programme plans to bring together Local Authorities, Distribution Network Operators, Social Housing Providers and homeowners to find clusters of suitable properties for heat pump deployment. This will be delivered through a collaborative approach, sourcing various funding streams and designing an approach to deliver targeted support to help unlock the behavioural change required to maximise the efficiency of heat pump installations. This feasibility study will design a methodology to open up heat pump deployment to fuel poor households by examining opportunities to consolidate and simplify the end-to-end procurement and installation process for the customer, as well developing financial support and building fabric upgrade offers, to be based on property assessments and generation of accurate heat load profiles. If successful in proceeding to Phase 2, funding will be utilised to assess the status of each property and determine if it is heat pump ready, whilst addressing any identified issues requiring remediation before a heat pump is a viable option through working with the Distribution Network and planning officers. This collaboration between different stakeholders will ensure alignment and remove the barriers to heat pump installations at scale. [Project report: Utilita Energy Heat Pump Ready Programme](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688246f89fab8e2e86161049/Utilita_Sunderland_AD_EB_review.pdf) ## Leeds, Yorkshire * Location category: Urban * Project title: Renewable Heat Infrastructure Network Operating System (RHINOS) Leeds * Lead organisation: Leeds City Council * Contract value: £197,928.49 * Project partners: Kensa Contracting Limited, University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University, Arup, Legal & General, Parity Projects, Otley Energy, IRT Survey Ltd * Project subcontractors: No subcontractors ### Project overview The RHINOS project in Leeds aims to reduce the lifetime costs of domestic heat pumps and associated infrastructure through innovation and deployment of shared ground arrays for heat pumps as a New Utility. This promotes an area-based approach, long-advocated by Leeds City Council, which brings several additional benefits including coordinated grid upgrades, encouraging deployment across private and social housing, and providing a catalyst for neighbourhood regeneration. A key part of this project is to strengthen partnerships between all stakeholders in Leeds involved in heat pump technology, energy infrastructure and domestic housing stock sectors to build confidence and to provide a suitable consumer offer. The project will aim to provide an evidence-based approach that enables replicable investment pathways for similar high-density heat pump deployment across the UK and provide confidence to encourage investment and scaled-up deployment of shared ground loop heat pump solutions. [Project report: Renewable Heat Infrastructure Network Operating System (RHINOS) Leeds](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68824643901d5f8d47120609/Leeds_CC_Leeds_EB_OP_review.pdf) ## Oxford, Oxfordshire * Location Category: Urban * Project title: Clean Heat Streets * Lead organisation: Samsung Electronics (UK) Limited * Contract value: £199,614 * Project partners: BOXT Limited, GenGame Limited, Oxford University Centre for the Environment (OUCE), Oxford Brookes University, Oxfordshire County Council, SMS Energy Services Ltd * Project subcontractors: no subcontractors ### Project overview Clean Heat Streets aims to connect local communities to local installers whilst removing frictions and costs from the current heat pump installation process. The project will work with county and city councils and with finance providers to make sure that a wide range of people within the local community are able to benefit from a heat pump. By working with the local Distribution Network Operator, the project will identify any local network constraints and opportunities to use the flexible smart control of heat pumps to avoid the need for expensive grid upgrades and connection charges for customers. During the feasibility stage the project will develop innovative customer identification and engagement approaches, and novel strategies to reduce the cost for heat pump deployment. If successful in phase 2, the team will work with energy suppliers, using smart metering and half-hourly settlement of the electricity used by heat pumps, to reduce suppliers’ costs and enable them to offer cheaper and a simple-to-understand tariff to customers. By reducing the upfront and running costs, Clean Heat Streets aims to provide an answer to the common question: “why should I get a heat pump if getting a new gas boiler is easier and cheaper?” [Project report: Clean Heat Streets](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6882465d6a7ea0e1ce1d363e/Samsung_Oxford_OP_KG_review.pdf) ## Greenwich, Greater London * Location Category: Urban * Project title: Greenwich Thermal Infrastructure Motivating Electrification (Greenwich TIME) * Lead organisation: Element Energy Limited (UK) * Contract value: £199,170.95 * Project partners: Kensa Contracting Limited, DG Cities, Nationwide Building Society, Heat Geek Limited, OVO Energy Ltd * Project subcontractors: I C Consultants Limited, UK Power Networks Limited ### Project overview The Greenwich TIME project aims to decouple the capital cost barrier of ground-source loops from customers to help enable high-density heat pump deployment. This will be achieved by harnessing the power of networked heat pumps distributed on a shared ground array. The project explores the potential to decouple the up-front capital cost barrier of the ground side installation from customers via financing in a manner similar to how existing domestic services are funded, and aims to develop a methodology which would enable consumers to replace their boiler with a networked heat pump in a way that is simple to understand and adopt, with minimal household disruption. The project will design a home service package, which would be offered to households by an electricity supplier, including: a mains connection, easy appliance swap-out, and low long-term running cost. Varied consumer engagement and adoption methods will be tested to better understand the optimal service offer and the method of communication that is needed for rapid uptake. [Project report: Greenwich Thermal Infrastructure Motivating Electrification (Greenwich TIME)](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688246723f770776241205fc/Element_Energy_Greenwich_CP_OP_review.pdf) ## Bristol * Location Category: Urban * Project title: Bristol Heat Pump Ready * Lead organisation: Buro Happold * Contract value: £198,167.20 * Project partners: No partners * Project subcontractors: The Green Register, Bristol City Council, Centre for Sustainable Energy, Veritherm, Build Test Solutions, Energy Tracers CIC, University of Bristol, Bristol Energy Network, Sustainable Westbury-on-Trym, LiveWest, Places for People, BetaTeach, C Brookes Heating, Western Power Distribution. ### Project overview The Bristol Heat Pump Ready project focuses on ensuring consumers are fully supported in the transition to low carbon heat, by working collaboratively with local communities and supply chains. It will develop a service model which will be fully replicable UK-wide which leaves no one behind. New combined energy technology and retrofit packages will be designed which will aim to reduce household bills, prevent consumers going into fuel poverty and make homes warmer and more comfortable. The project will follow a “touch it once” philosophy by using digital twin technology to appraise technical and commercial service models for a particular locality, as well as ensure electricity networks are ready for the changeover. The entire consumer journey is considered, including supporting other technologies such as electric vehicle charging solutions, which will provide best value to all network customers. The project will also focus on developing new methods of training to encourage and support the expansion of a skilled workforce in the supply chain, which will create low carbon jobs. [Project report: Bristol Heat Pump Ready](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6882467e6a7ea0e1ce1d363f/Buro_Happold_Bristol_CP_EB_review.pdf) ## Teignbridge, Devon * Location Category: Rural * Project title: Project Gaia * Lead organisation: EDF Energy R&D * Contract value: £199,143.10 * Project partners: EDF Energy Customers Limited, Urbanomy UK Limited, Devon County Council, Kensa Utilities, University of Sheffield * Project subcontractors: Teign Energy Community, Exeter Communities Energy Organisation, Kensa Contracting, Genius Energy Labs, Enzen, University College London ### Project overview Project Gaia aims to address the upfront cost barriers of ground source heat pump installation and increase the accessibility of heat pump technology. This will be achieved by considering the feasibility of configuring heat pumps as part of an ambient shared loop array, leading to higher energy efficiencies, and maintaining consumer familiarity by following a similar business model to the existing gas network. If successful in phase 2, it is expected that the underground infrastructure would be owned and maintained by a utility company, but individual heat pump units and tertiary systems would be owned by the consumer. This split-ownership model reduces the capital cost compared to installing an individual ground source heat pump, therefore making heat pumps a more accessible and affordable option. [Project report: Project Gaia](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688246ee2b6fd60b7c161027/EDF_Devon_CP_AD_review.pdf) ## Fenland, Cambridgeshire * Location Category: Rural * Project title: PACE Financing for Heat Pumps in Rural Cambridgeshire * Lead organisation: City Science Corporation Limited * Contract value: £196,935.00 * Project partners: No partners * Project subcontractors: Peterborough Environment City Trust, Cambridgeshire County Council, Fenland District Council, Growth Guides (Apple Barn UK Limited), Lendology · ### Project overview This project will support the development of optimised deployment of domestic heat-pumps in high-density areas; using rural Cambridgeshire as a test bed for innovative technologies to reduce costs to consumers, minimise barriers to uptake, improve repeatability of performance and understand impacts on the national grid. The project will utilise a holistic approach to Heat Pump deployment, based on an “integrated stakeholder model”, bringing together several components of programme design, based on best-practice research. Working with local partners and catalysing change, a place-based approach will help establish local momentum and generate community interest for Heat Pumps. Through collaborating with Cambridgeshire Retrofit Partnership, the project will evolve and disseminate best practices. The project will work closely with users to streamline the customer journey, tailored to two core user segments – those in or at risk of fuel poverty and able-to-pay home-owners. The project will translate successes observed in the US PACE programme and apply these within a UK context to stimulate uptake. The project will use a detailed and replicable geospatial process to prioritise work in communities that will receive the greatest impact. [Project report: PACE Financing for Heat Pumps in Rural Cambridgeshire](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6882471c6a7ea0e1ce1d3641/City_Science_Cambridgeshire_CP_review.pdf) ## Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross * Location Category: Urban with significant rural * Project title: SAPPHIRE Solo * Lead organisation: Power Circle Projects * Contract value: £83,870.48 * Project partners: No partners * Project subcontractors: Connect 3, Blairgowrie and Rattray Development Trust, Geospatial Insight Ltd, Strathclyde University (Energy Systems Research Unit), MCA Renewables, Zuos Ltd, Scottish and South Energy Networks ### Project overview The SAPPHIRE Solo project will explore the provision of smart energy systems in homes that incorporate heat pump technology, battery, and Solar PV. Adopting a system approach, the smart energy system’s key benefit is to enable a switch from gas to electric heating without raising energy bills. This delivers more carbon savings and offers greater economic benefit than installing heat pumps on their own. The project aims to understand the feasibility of aggregated installations for optimised management and generation of grid services revenues which help fund the equipment, to provide a further benefit to the consumer. The project also includes developing an approach to work with local gas service engineers, boosting install capacity and providing a key channel to market at scale. [Project report: SAPPHIRE Solo](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6882473af47abf78ca1d3642/20230125_SAPPHIRE_Solo_Final_Report_AD___KG_review.pdf) ## Cherwell, Oxfordshire * Location Category: Urban with significant rural * Project title: Prosumer Model for Heat Pump Deployment in Cherwell * Lead organisation: City Science Corporation Limited * Contract value: £198,400.00 * Project partners: No partners * Project subcontractors: Oxfordshire County council, National Energy Foundation, Growth Guides, Trust Power, Lendology ### Project overview The Prosumer Model for Heat Pump Deployment in Cherwell aims to take a holistic approach to heat pump deployment, based on a community-focused prosumer approach to energy generation. This will enable consumers to both produce and consume their own energy. A key part of the prosumer model that will be developed will be to combine heat pump installation, retrofit and onsite energy generation, to help simplify consumer pathways to build confidence in low carbon heat technologies. This will be achieved by employing a consumer-centric approach through providing a ‘one-stop-shop’ for energy efficiency, helping consumers address barriers by engaging local communities to work collaboratively. [Project report: Prosumer Model for Heat Pump Deployment in Cherwell](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6882475f901d5f8d4712060c/City_Science_Cherwell_KG_IS_review.pdf) ## Bridgend * Location Category: Urban with significant rural * Project title: Heat Pump Ready - Bridgend * Lead organisation: Buro Happold * Contract value: £195,385.41 * Project partners: No partners * Project subcontractors: Kensa, Nuvision, Challoch ### Project overview The Heat Pump Ready – Bridgend project builds on the latest thinking in Local Area Energy Planning, identifying viable deployment routes for clusters of homes that can participate in heat pump installations, to help facilitate the switch to low carbon heating technologies. This will include solutions for terraced house communities where air source heat pumps cannot be installed due to space and environmental constraints. Technologies appraised will include air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps, or heat pumps working on a shared loop system. New commercial models, including local energy market structures to drive down heat costs, will be considered. Capacity in the electricity grid network for heat pumps to be installed, as well as electric vehicle charging, will also be assessed and solutions developed to enable the transition. The funding for this project focuses on the feasibility study, which will identify the most suitable locations for the trials that may follow, should the project be successful in Phase 2. [Project report: Heat Pump Ready - Bridgend](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688247729fab8e2e8616104c/Buro_Happold_Bridgend_IS_CP_review.pdf) --- Stream 1, solutions for high-density heat pump deployment, will support the development and trial of solutions and methodologies for the optimised deployment of domestic heat pumps at high-density. ## Overview Heat Pump Ready, Stream 1: Phase 2 has awarded a total of £9,746,535.60 to 4 projects across Great Britain. Stream 1: Phase 2 projects will complete by 31 January 2025. A summary of Stream 1: Phase 2 projects are provided in the table below. | Location | Project title | Lead organisation | | --- | --- | --- | | Oxford, Oxfordshire | Clean Heat Streets | Samsung Electronics UK Limited | | Bristol | Bristol Heat Pump Ready | Bristol City Council | | Fenland, Cambridgeshire | Heat pumps for Friday Bridge, Cambridgeshire | City Science Corporation Limited | | Cherwell, Oxfordshire | Home Efficiency Hub – Heat Pumps in Cherwell, Oxfordshire | City Science Corporation Limited | ## Oxford, Oxfordshire * Location category: Urban * Project title: Clean Heat Streets * Lead organisation: Samsung Electronics (UK) Limited * Contract value: £3,206,448.63 * Project partners: Oxford Brookes, University of Oxford, GenGame Limited, Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council, SMS Energy Services Limited, Scottish and Southern Electricity Network, Alto Energy Ltd and Passiv Uk * Project subcontractors: Rosehill and Iffley Low Carbon ### Project overview Oxford has an ambition to become a net zero carbon city by 2040 – ten years ahead of the Government’s targets. To do this over 30,000 air-source heat pumps will need to be installed across the city by 2040. The Clean Heat Streets project aims to explore how key barriers to heat pump uptake can be overcome by exploring solutions on a street-by-street basis, rather than an individual home approach. The project builds upon the work of a six month feasibility study which developed an innovative local area energy mapping approach to identify suitable homes for installing heat pumps and explored the key barriers to heat pump uptake in the Rose Hill area of Oxford. In Phase 2 the project will initially recruit show homes who will have a heat pump installed. Show home owners will then hold open days for their neighbours to increase interest and get more people to sign-up. All recruited homes will then have heat pumps installed, and all residents will receive a full support package to help them through the installation process, and to ensure the heat pump is set-up to work optimally for their home. By working to streamline the installation process, and through the economies-of-scale inherent in a street-by-street approach, the Clean Heat Streets project will be able to offer a lower installation cost to the homeowner. The project will use Smart Tariffs combined with smart scheduling to show how heat pumps can be used to save money on energy bills compared with gas heating. It will also work with the Distribution Network Operator (SSEN) to explore how a large number of heat pumps can be installed within a particular area without causing problems to the network– for example, by causing very high peaks in demand for electricity on winter evenings. By reducing the upfront and running costs, Clean Heat Streets aims to provide an answer to the common question: “why should I get a heat pump if getting a new gas boiler is easier and cheaper?” ## Bristol * Location category: Urban * Project title: Bristol Heat Pump Ready * Lead organisation: Bristol City Council * Contract value: £2,925,450.72 * Project partners: Centre for Sustainable Energy and The Green Register * Project subcontractors: Buro Happold, Veritherm, Build Test Solutions, Sustainable Westbury on Trym, Bristol Energy Network and CIG Consultants ### Project overview Bristol Heat Pump Ready is a collaborative initiative to develop a UK wide approach to stimulate mass uptake of heat pumps and deliver on our national carbon targets, but with a local focus. The outputs will ensure affordability, quality and confidence. It will develop a service model which is fully replicable UK-wide. New approaches to establishing the right product for the right home will be developed. Innovative planning using the latest in digital twin technology will help enable our electricity networks to be readied for the transition to a zero carbon future. New methods of training will be developed to encourage and support the development of a skilled workforce in the supply chain which will create jobs. Community engagement will be at the heart of our approach bringing the industry to the consumer and ensuring consumers have everything they need to make the decisions they need to, in decarbonising their homes. ## Fenland, Cambridgeshire * Location category: Rural * Project title: Heat pumps for Friday Bridge, Cambridgeshire * Lead organisation: City Science Corporation Limited * Contract value: £1,815,391.09 * Project partners: Peterborough Environment City Trust, Cambridgeshire County Council and Fenland District Council * Project subcontractors: Lendology, Growth Guides and UK Power Networks ### Project overview The project aims to take a holistic approach to heat pump deployment by improving all stages of the consumer journey from initial awareness through to aftercare. It is a local authority backed approach which will build trust with consumers. It will have an innovative financing offering to help overcome the high upfront cost of heat pumps, and a seamless web platform that eliminates barriers to uptake. The platform will streamline the consumer journey by providing a single point of call for guidance, arranging a suitability survey and booking the heat pump installation. Key activities include developing and building the web platform, conducting hyper-local customer engagement, procuring a team of coordinated installers and service providers, and working with the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) to develop new processes to enable the bulk connection approval of heat pumps. ## Cherwell, Oxfordshire * Location category: Urban with significant rural * Project title: Home Efficiency Hub – Heat Pumps in Cherwell, Oxfordshire * Lead organisation: City Science Corporation Limited * Contract value: £1,799,245.11 * Project partners: Oxford County Council, National Energy Foundation and Scottish and Southern Electricity Network * Project subcontractors: Growth Guides, Lendology and TrustMark ### Project overview The project aims to take a holistic approach to heat pump deployment. It is based on a community-focused prosumer model approach to energy generation, alongside an innovative finance offering and a seamless One Stop Shop service that eliminates barriers to uptake. Key activities include developing and building a digital One Stop Shop for energy efficiency that combines heat pumps, onsite generation and retrofit. The project also employs a hyper-local customer engagement strategy, will procure a team of coordinated installers and service providers, and works with the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) to develop new processes to enable the bulk approval of heat pumps. --- ## Overview Heat Pump Ready – Stream 2 has awarded a total of £15,030,944.72 of grant funding to 24 projects across Great Britain. Stream 2 projects will complete by 26 February 2025. A summary of Stream 2 projects is provided in the table below. Table 1: Summary of Heat Pump Ready, Stream 2 projects | Lead organisation | Project title | | --- | --- | | Build Test Solutions | MEASURED: The role of measured building performance in heat pump specification, system design and management | | City Science Corporation Limited | Advanced Modelling for Heat as a Service | | EDF | Catalyst – Accelerating the heat pump journey | | Energiesprong UK Ltd | Integrated Comfort and Billing Service | | Green Energy Options (geo) | AI Smart Heat Pathway | | GenGame Ltd | Total Home Optimisation Management (THOM) | | Guru Systems Ltd | Guru Smart Heat Pumps: developing tools for social housing landlords to enable heat pump installation at scale across the UK | | Guru Systems Ltd | Guru Verify for Heat Pumps: delivering best practice install, commissioning and maintenance verification tools to the Heat Pump market | | Hildebrand Technology Ltd | Glow Heat Pump Community | | Hoare Lea | Right sizing heat pumps | | Home Infrastructure Technology Limited (Add to my mortgage) | Green Homeowner Loans | | ICAX Ltd | Heat Pump Manufacturing Automation for Scale and Cost | | Kensa Heat Pumps Limited | Highly Flexible Storage Heat Pump (HFSHP) | | Mixergy Ltd | Making Efficient Systems around Heat-pumps (MESH) | | Parity Projects Ltd | Performance | | Q-Bot Ltd | Free Heat Pump Home Survey and Design Tool | | RJ Barwick Ltd | Archetypal Heat Pump Retrofit for 175,000 Non-Trads | | Switchee Ltd. | Digitising the Customer Journey of Heat Pumps in Social Housing | | The MCS Service Company Limited | EST MCS Heat Pump Consumer Journey | | Thermoelectric Conversion Systems Ltd | Two stage heat pump with greywater energy recovery | | heatly | Total Heatpump Installation Solution (THIS) | | Ventive Ltd | Modular Heat Pumps for Cell Based Microfactory Assembly | | VIA Analytics Limited | Heat Pathway | | Wondrwall Limited | Wondrwall: Intelligent air-sourcing to net zero | [Read more about Stream 2](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/heat-pump-ready-programme-apply-for-stream-2-opportunities). The following sections provide further details regarding the specific projects funded under Heat Pump Ready – Stream 2. ## Build Test Solutions * Project title: MEASURED: The role of measured building performance in heat pump specification, system design and management * BEIS Grant Value: £233,887.58 * Project partners: Veritherm UK and Elmhurst Energy Services Ltd ### Project overview This project aims to create a new method to optimise heat pump specification, design and management by using on-site measurement of building performance parameters as design inputs. Through using smart meters, low-cost sensors and newly established techniques to directly measure key performance parameters on a property basis, this project aims to determine: * How calculations and measurements can co-exist, the latter providing improved confidence as well as optimisation and calibration of heat pump system specification and design. * A publicly available protocol that defines the measurement options, the standards that must be followed, what the outputs must comprise and how these should be presented. * Optimal delivery models with respect to the use of quick tests, low disruption short term monitoring and/ or use of existing smart infrastructure and IoT devices already installed. * The role of ongoing measurement and condition monitoring services to validate system performance in-use. * Scope and also deliver added features and functionality to the measurement in response to heat pump market needs. [Project report: MEASURED: The role of measured building performance in heat pump specification, system design and management](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834b68c02b468fa1ae092c/Build_Test_Solutions.pdf) ## City Science Corporation * Project title: Advanced Modelling for Heat as a Service * BEIS Grant Value: £498,692.32 * Project partners: None ### Project overview This project aims to transform our current understanding of heat in the domestic setting and to provide a scalable approach to heat pump financing and deployment throughout the UK. This will be achieved via the prototyping, deployment, and testing of a Heat-as-a-Service (HaaS) modeling solution, which will provide decarbonisation pathways and financing models. The solution features a modular design, interacting to provide a full HaaS offering. Sub-sets of these modules will also provide highly valuable use-cases, for example by enabling key insights into which buildings heat pumps can provide a viable and attractive heating solution. Through the facilitation of a complete and accurate financing package, this project hopes to enable increased financing for combined heat pump and retrofit solutions, thus accelerating heat pump deployment at the lowest cost to the consumer. [Project report: Advanced Modelling for Heat as a Service](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834ba82f4f3f3c34bbeb6d/City_Science.pdf) ## EDF * Project title: Catalyst – Accelerating the heat pump journey * BEIS Grant Value: £395,220.94 * Project partners: Daikin Airconditioning UK Ltd, SPEN, University of Sheffield ### Project overview The Catalyst project aims to simplify and improve the efficiency of the heat pump installation process by creating a consumer-centric digital platform to support customers through the whole heat pump installation journey. This digital solution aims to improve the customer journey by streamlining the required pre-installation steps into one remote survey, adopting a self-serve approach and reducing the amount of information required upfront. The outcome will be an end-to-end digital solution which will support customers in identifying innovative heat pump solutions, tailored to their profile. Catalyst will bring together a consortium of organisations who have extensive experience and knowledge on the heat pump installation process, and will be split into three main digital modules: - Pre-survey assessment using basic customer-provided data and housing stock data, determining heat pump eligibility or providing advice on other steps required (e.g. insulation) to become eligible. - Remote survey and analysis, carrying out detailed design, quotation and installation plan. - Post-installation monitoring and customer ‘after care’ package to build long term relationships with customers. [Project report: Catalyst – Accelerating the heat pump journey](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834bda2f4f3f3c34bbeb6e/EDF.pdf) ## Energiesprong * Project title: Integrated Comfort and Billing Service * BEIS Grant Value: £204,126.00 * Project partners: None ### Project overview Heat pumps can deliver warm and comfortable homes, and energy cost savings of over 50% when deployed as part of a high performance and high quality retrofit. This creates an opportunity for a ‘Comfort Plan’ to be offered, which provides guaranteed heating outcomes for occupants in return for a fee (which is no more than the total savings). This can help to fund the heat pump retrofit enabling greater deployment and support access to heat pumps through reducing the requirement for upfront capital investment. This project will finalise the process and technology requirements to offer a seamless end to end Comfort Plan management service, and then develop and test the technical solutions required to enable delivery of this. Developments in this scheme will be shared with Energiesprong projects in the initial contracted pipeline of 1,550 homes, aiming for solutions to be demonstrated within live projects. [Project report: Integrated Comfort and Billing Service](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834c16cec9ccd515ae092c/Energiesprong.pdf) ## Green Energy Options * Project title: AI Smart Heat Pathway * BEIS Grant Value: £474,703.18 * Project partners: TBC ### Project overview Green Energy Options are proposing an AI Smart Heath Pathway to enable rapid, high-quality and scalable heat pump deployment. This will be achieved through leveraging AI on Smart Meter and Smart Thermostat data to determine a personal net-zero pathway for each home, and size the subsequent appropriate heat pump, from actual measured data. AI Smart Heat Pathway will help reduce the upfront costs of property survey and design and provide a viable customer success pathway towards net-zero heat for hard-to-treat homes. The project will be piloted across 150 homes, with the aim of scaling the AI Smart Heat Pathway nationwide subsequently. [Project report: AI Smart Heat Pathway](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834c4dac2c821a74bbeb6e/GEO-scottish-power.pdf) ## Gen Game * Project title: Total Home Optimisation Management (THOM) * BEIS Grant Value: £762,522.55 * Project partners: Evergreen Energy Ltd, Chameleon Technology (UK) Limited, TalkTalk, EnAPPsys Ltd, University of Salford ### Project overview The THOM project aims to create a heat pump specialist Home Energy Management System (HEMS) supported by a full-package solution to help customers understand and maximise the benefits to their home, while reducing costs and carbon. This will be achieved by: * Using smart meter data to identify customers who would benefit from heat pumps and inform them of savings. * Sizing heat pumps based on a variety of data sources. * Optimising home energy systems across heat pumps, PV, electric vehicle charging, battery storage and other energy assets to reduce costs and carbon. * Providing access to flexibility markets to enhance the benefits and business case. * Remaining energy supplier and product manufacturer agnostic, giving customers choice. [Project report: Total Home Optimisation Management (THOM)](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834c792f4f3f3c34bbeb70/GenGame.pdf) ## Guru Systems Ltd. * Project title: Guru Smart Heat Pumps: developing tools for social housing landlords to enable heat pump installation at scale across the UK * BEIS Grant Value: £445,943.00 * Project partners: None ### Project overview The Guru Smart Heat Pumps project is focused on finding solutions for large landlords who manage buildings or sites that contain multiple homes, such as housing associations and local authorities, through providing a holistic solution that understands the context of the heating system prior to the installation of heat pumps. Through continuously monitoring and analysing ongoing performance, the objective is to ultimately provide operators the ability to remotely adjust the settings as required. The overall outcomes of the Guru Smart Heat Pumps project will be reduced initial capex spend, and improved heat pump performance in operation, resulting in fewer maintenance callouts, lower carbon emissions, and, most importantly, more comfortable residents with reduced heating costs. This will be achieved by providing tools and monitoring equipment to allow landlords to actively manage their heating system. [Project report: Guru Smart Heat Pumps: developing tools for social housing landlords to enable heat pump installation at scale across the UK](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834ca32f4f3f3c34bbeb71/Guru.pdf) ## Guru Systems Ltd. * Project title: Guru Verify for Heat Pumps: delivering best practice install, commissioning and maintenance verification tools to the heat pump market * BEIS Grant Value: £475,162.00 * Project partners: None ### Project overview The Guru Verify for Heat Pumps project is focused on creating a modular mobile app and web platform which supports the correct installation, commissioning and maintenance of heat pumps. The platform verifies outcomes and stores heat pump settings in order to benchmark for future maintenance and efficiency improvements, and acts as a training resource for new heat pump engineers. The modular nature of the product will allow for a dynamic service to provide apps and platforms for surveys, commissioning and subsequent maintenance which can be easily adjusted for different heat pumps and adapt to changing verification regimes depending on how the market evolves. ## Hildebrand Technology Ltd. * Project title: Glow Heat Pump Community * BEIS Grant Value: £665,910.00 * Project partners: Build Test Solutions Ltd, NJV Limited, Richard Carmichael Research & Consulting Ltd, Davies and Mckerr Ltd, SE2 Limited ### Project overview The Glow Heat Pump Community project will improve the heat pump adoption customer journey, installer expertise, and outcomes by leveraging data from installations and enabling peer-to-peer learning and transparency. It will provide a data-driven solution to reduce complexity and uncertainty for consumers and provide data, tools and resources for installer decision-making and upskilling. Data and learning from every installation will be captured in structured Case Studies (including post-installation assessment) to share insights in a structured, useful and engaging way. The goal is to create a feedback loop of peer-to-peer learning, among consumers and installers, that continuously improves advice and stakeholder confidence, based on practical real-world experience. [Project report: Glow Heat Pump Community](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834d58be2291b14d11aee7/Hildebrand.pdf) ## Hoare Lea * Project title: Right sizing heat pumps * BEIS Grant Value: £505,442.37 * Project partners: City Science Corporation, Purrmetrix, Places for People Group Limited ### Project overview The ‘Right Sizing Heat Pumps’ project aims to reduce capital costs, operational costs, and grid infrastructure upgrade costs through developing a tool to properly size, efficiently monitor and optimise heat pump performance. This will be achieved by improving cost and viability through standardising the approach to sizing heat pumps. [Project report: Right sizing heat pumps](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834d902f4f3f3c34bbeb73/Hoare_Lea.pdf) ## Home Infrastructure Technology * Project title: Green Homeowner Loans * BEIS Grant Value: £367,507.20 * Project partners: None ### Project overview The aim of this project is to develop a Green Homeowner Loan to pave the way for mass adoption of green home improvements, by developing a fintech platform specifically designed to fund heat pumps and other green measures. Aiming to be financially attainable, this will help gain consumer buy-in and help increase the sale of heat pumps. [Project report: Green Homeowner Loans](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834ddfc02b468fa1ae092e/Hometree.pdf) ## ICAX Ltd. * Project title: Heat Pump Manufacturing Automation for Scale and Cost * BEIS grant value: £923,816.56 * Project partners: None ### Project overview This project aims to tackle the cost barriers of heat pump deployment by designing and building a trial manufacturing assembly line for residential heat pumps, using state of the art analytical and physical tools. This will offer a systemic approach to optimised manufacturing based on current state of the art intelligent manufacturing design and operation capabilities. By re-designing the heat pump assembly process, the objective is to reduce unit costs and increase product quality. ## Kensa Heat Pumps Ltd. * Project title: Highly Flexible Storage Heat Pump (HFSHP) * BEIS Grant Value: £1,233,117.39 * Project partners: MTC, PNDC University of Strathclyde ### Project overview This project aims to combine electrically-driven heat pumps with heat storing batteries to shift heat production from times of peak electrical demand on the National Grid, enabling consumers to charge heating systems to store lower cost and lower carbon heat in anticipation of their peak heating demand. This is achieved by decoupling the times of heating demand in the property from the time of electrical heat production and will help accelerate the technology to the market to make it productionised and affordable in a shorter time-scale. By shifting energy demands, the project also aims to negate some of the challenges faced by the grid from electrifying and decarbonising heat. [Project report: Highly Flexible Storage Heat Pump (HFSHP)](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834e45cec9ccd515ae092e/Kensa.pdf) ## Mixergy Ltd. * Project title: Making Efficient Systems around Heat Pumps (MESH) * BEIS Grant Value: £455,214.60 * Project partners: Centrica PLC., Vaillant Group UK Ltd. ### Project overview Project MESH aims to reduce the lifetime costs of domestic heat pump installation whilst delivering higher system efficiency throughout the year. In turn this will expect to reduce capital and operational costs, ensuring a more seamless installation process and holistic approach to design. During the project, the team will focus on ground-breaking technologies which reduce installation complexity and elevate the seasonally adjusted Coefficient of Performance of real-world heat pump installations. [Project report: Making Efficient Systems around Heat Pumps (MESH)](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68834e721e72aed40611aee6/Mixergy.pdf) ## Parity Projects Ltd. * Project title: Performance * BEIS Grant Value: £670,708.44 * Project partners: London South Bank University, ICAX Ltd., Cambridge Energy, RetrofitWorks ### Project overview Performance aims to directly address the cost and quality assurance barriers of decarbonising heat in homes, by creating a low-cost cost-effective options analysis and verification protocol to enable the offer of a financially insurable performance guarantee to homeowners and landlords. The project outcome will be software that integrates existing retrofit supply chain components to ensure improved assurance of design and installation of a suitable package of measures, with a particular focus on managing financial risk. [Project report: Performance](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688351abbe2291b14d11aee9/Parity_Performance.pdf) ## Q-Bot Ltd. * Project title: Free Heat Pump Home Survey and Design Tool * BEIS Grant Value: £782,664.99 * Project partners: None ### Project overview A Free Heat Pump Home Survey and Design Tool which will help consumers make informed decisions on heat pump installation, ultimately providing a knowledge base to facilitate the national rollout of Heat Pumps. As there are different types of Heat Pumps available with vastly different applicability, thermal output, installation complexity and cost, the tool will help consumers confidently match the heat pump to thermal demand of the house and other specific needs on a case-by-case basis. [Project report: Free Heat Pump Home Survey and Design Tool](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688351d1be2291b14d11aeea/Q-Bot.pdf) ## RJ Barwick * Project title: Archetypal Heat Pump Retrofit for 175,000 Non-Trads * BEIS Grant Value: £899,000.00 * Project partners: None ### Project overview 1 million non-traditional homes in the UK have poor energy performance, putting their occupiers at increased risk of fuel poverty, and presenting a key challenge to standardised energy efficiency measures that typically precede a heat pump installation. This project will utilise the Energiesprong approach to develop optimum standardised whole house retrofit solutions for four of the most challenging and/or common non-traditional home archetypes across sites in West Kent. The housing stock of West Kent Housing Association & Gravesham Borough Council will be used for these pilots, with selected archetypes that have inherent design complexities, assisting the development of optimum solutions in the future. There is a consistency of non-traditional archetypes across geographic areas, presenting an opportunity for other Kent landlords to join the pilot at a later date. Each house has its own complexities and sharing of practical archetypal retrofit knowledge on ‘hard to treat’ non-traditional homes underpins this project. ## Switchee Ltd. * Project title: Digitising the Customer Journey of Heat Pumps in Social Housing * BEIS Grant Value: £468,656.00 * Project partners: Leeds Beckett University, Daikin Airconditioning UK ### Project overview This project aims to produce smart heat pump tools specifically aimed at improving the consumer journey for residents in Social Housing. This is achieved by providing tools and research to overcome the current scaling barriers relating to heat pump acceptance, lack of awareness and consumer behaviour. This will be delivered by: * Allowing remote reading of error warning messages from the heat pump to alert the housing association. * Using heat pump specific metrics including live and historic data. Heat pump specific algorithms will be developed to alert on detected heat pump performance issues i.e. excessive energy consumption. * Offering tailored heat pump advice focused on resident experience. * Empower the housing association to trigger when a new resident has moved into the property so that heat pump advice and educational material can be made available to them. [Project report: Digitising the Customer Journey of Heat Pumps in Social Housing](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6883520dc02b468fa1ae0934/Switchee.pdf) ## The MCS Service Company * Project title: EST MCS Heat Pump Consumer Journey * BEIS Grant Value: £229,644.00 * Project partners: Energy Saving Trust Ltd ### Project overview Energy Saving Trust and MCS propose to develop a new consumer journey for heat pumps, guiding consumers from their first engagement through to receiving quotes for installation. The journey will build a technology selection tool based on the existing, tried and tested solution provided through Home Energy Scotland to assess a property’s suitability for a heat pump. This will be linked to an enhanced version of the MCS ‘find a contractor’ tool to allow consumers to request installation quotes from installers. Headlined with the Energy Savings Trust and MCS brands the tool will allow for maximum consumer accessibility. The project will seek an assessment partner, , to increase the accuracy and dependability of the home information data. The intention being to provide multiple installers with sufficient information to quote to 90% accuracy, without the need for several pre-quote site surveys, whilst still complying with MCS standards. [Project report: EST MCS Heat Pump Consumer Journey](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68835235ac2c821a74bbeb73/MCS.pdf) ## Thermoelectric Conversion Systems Ltd * Project title: Two stage heat pump with greywater energy recovery * BEIS Grant Value: £574,108.00 * Project partners: None ### Project overview This project aims to overcome several major infrastructural challenges of heat pump adoption, by harnessing demand-side management to cope with peak loads and time-shifting energy use. By utilising otherwise wasted energy, this solution aims to give economic and reliable products for retrofit in existing homes and new-build properties to dramatically improve energy efficiency of buildings and cut running costs. This will be achieved by: * Drawing energy from the household wastewater stream by re-using energy lost, e.g. from the shower or bath, by fitting the heat pump in the drainage system to recover energy stored in a hot water cylinder. * Using a small air source heat pump to ‘top up’ the hot water tank temperature to provide the domestic hot water supply. * Operating both heat pumps from a mains plug. * Using a smart controller to manage both heat pumps and integrate with demand-side management systems to ensure sufficient hot water and heat are available. [Project report: Two stage heat pump with greywater energy recovery](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6883527dcec9ccd515ae0932/TCS.pdf) ## heatly * Project title: Total Heat-Pump Installation Solution (THIS) * BEIS Grant Value: £1,595,738.00 * Project partners: None ### Project overview heatly is an all-encompassing integrated software package and app for installers to streamline the survey, installation and commissioning processes required when installing a heat pump. heatly is born from 2 industry experts. The project is led by Griff Thomas of GTEC Training Ltd and Paul Harmer of Inventive Software Ltd. heatly will provide a digital survey platform and a fully automated design facility, it allows the system to be optimised from the beginning and uses augmented reality to provide the consumer with an upfront feel for how the system and components will look and sound when installed. The platform will also ensure that all documentation is stored and logged against the installation, there will be full traceability for consumers and installers to access in the future when it comes to heat pump maintenance and service. Overall heatly will aim to streamline the installation process, significantly reducing the time and effort it takes to complete any installation. heatly is the trading name for Thormer Solutions Limited. [Project report: Total Heat-Pump Installation Solution (THIS)](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688352e61e72aed40611aee8/Heatly.pdf) ## Ventive * Project title: Modular Heat Pumps for Cell Based Microfactory Assembly * BEIS Grant Value: £1,498,600.00 * Project partners: QM-Systems Ltd, Clear Blue Energy Ltd ### Project overview Ventive are designing a modular Heat Pump that will provide significant cost and CO2 savings across the installation, operation and production phases. Ventive Home Heat Pumps are demand responsive, fully integrated Indoor Environment Control systems providing integrated ventilation, heating, and hot water with free summer cooling. The Heat Pump will arrive pre-plumbed and pre-configured with monitoring and renewable energy storage to enable quick and simple installation. Since each home is different (size, heat loss, thermal mass, occupancy, user behaviour), Ventive will use an array of integrated sensors to assess the indoor environment and adapt the performance of each system, learning and optimising its operation to drive improvements in energy efficiency, energy storage and load shifting capacity. [Project report: Modular Heat Pumps for Cell Based Microfactory Assembly](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6883530fc02b468fa1ae0936/Ventive.pdf) ## VIA Analytics * Project title: Heat Pathway * BEIS Grant Value: £218,287.60 * Project partners: Daedalus Environmental Limited ### Project overview Heat Pathway is a software project aimed at improving the customer journey. Significant barriers need to be overcome at a household level to accelerate adoption of Heat Pumps technology and to meet the target of 600,000 system installations per year by 2028. These include costs, understanding of the technology, and appreciation of the long-term benefits (financial and environmental). The project aims to help meet the 600,000 per year target by developing an online property level analytics platform – Heat Pathway – that enables end to end management of the customer journey, particularly through: * Identification of suitable opportunities for domestic heat pump installations (and benefits) through digital customer engagement; * Providing a platform that brings the customers and supply chain together in an efficient, optimised, digitally driven way. * Developing a framework to provide accurate data management of engagement, installation, and post completion – with the objective of increasing investor confidence, to promote accelerated investment into heat pumps technology. [Project report: Heat Pathway](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68835434cec9ccd515ae0933/Thermly.pdf) ## Wondrwall Ltd. * Project title: Intelligent airsourcing to net zero * BEIS Grant Value: £452,292.00 * Project partners: Daikin Air Conditioning UK Ltd ### Project overview This project aims to overcome the key technical barriers to integration and energy performance optimisation, reduce running costs of heat pumps, and more broadly support improved end-user experiences and acceptance of these systems. This will be achieved by optimising energy management to provide a platform that underpins advanced time-shifting strategies alongside proprietary artificial software intelligence software, using machine learning for dynamic predictive modelling of energy requirements based on their patented sensing technologies. [Project report: Intelligent airsourcing to net zero](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68835393c02b468fa1ae0937/Wondrwall.pdf) --- The Heat Pump Ready Programme Stream 2 Wave 2 competition supports applied research and development projects, focused on driving down the lifetime costs of domestic heat pump deployment, and improving the domestic consumer experience and acceptability of heat pumps through technology, tools, business model and process innovation. It aims to develop solutions that: * improve the ease of heat pump deployment in homes that are ‘complex to decarbonise’ by addressing physical, material, locational, technological, regulatory, or social challenges * develop innovative solutions to enable heat pumps to be deployed in ‘distress purchase’ situations when a new home heating system is required urgently * improve performance and/or reduce costs of domestic heat pumps with low-GWP refrigerants (below 150 GWP), while ensuring safety * reduce the lifetime costs or improve the overall lifetime performance of domestic heat pumps or improve the domestic consumer experience of using and living with a heat pump ## HomelyLifetime Lead partner: Evergreen Energy Ltd Grant total: £465,991.12 ### Project summary HomelyLifetime seeks to overcome the challenges we have seen through our experience as a leading heat pump installer and smart tech provider to improve lifetime performance and costs of heat pumps by using heat pump data to reduce friction between Installer, Customer and Smart tech provider. In too many cases, customers who have heat pumps installed are not receiving the required levels of information to properly understand how the heat pump works, which leads them to tinker with settings, leading to suboptimal performance or create errors. A recent analysis of heat pump installation data found a significant proportion were not completed properly, which was leading to short cycling and other errors impacting performance. Without the intelligent Homely data, it would be very difficult to identify the cause of this and who is responsible for fixing it. This leads to customer dissatisfaction and their sharing of negative responses slows the appetite for uptake in their wider community, which impacts uptake. Feedback from our installers shows they want more proactive maintenance alerts, so they can identify issues early, so problems are resolved quickly and often remotely. This improves the product lifetime by removing issues before they impact the household, while also saving costs of unnecessary parts replacements, reducing lifetime costs. They also want help to upskill consumers to understand the product to reduce callouts caused by user error, which reduces their ability to prioritise new heat pump installations and costs of wasted visits. Feedback from end users shows they require more information on how the heat pump works and how to achieve best lifetime value from the installation. This prompted the HomelyLifetime concept to overcome these issues by: * Creating an installer portal providing proactive insight into issues arising with installed heat pumps, by building in deep knowledge of heat pump installation and minute by minute operation to provide not only information on known issues, but also identifying issues which may impact long term heat pump performance or lifespan – such as short cycling. * Prompting and encouraging good user behaviour through the app that improves long-term performance of the heat pump, maximizing its life span, reducing maintenance requirements, and optimising day-to-day running costs. * Streamline the handover process between installer and customer, providing customer guidance and insight as they start their heat pump journey to optimise the setup and configuration, ensuring that customers are fully satisfied with their new heating system and support services. [HomelyLifetime: case study](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/695fb01741ddb40d13f764fb/homely-stream-2-case-study.pdf) ## Thermly Distress Diagnostics Lead partner: Thermly Limited Partners: Lendology CIC Grant total: £518,362.73 ### Project summary 58% of properties replace their heating systems when ‘in distress’ i.e. when the heating system is either broken or on its last legs. This project seeks to develop the data analytics capability, the underlying intelligence, and associated web-based software, that can identify with relative certainty when households are going to need a heating system replacement in advance. This is with the aim of avoiding, wherever possible, the issue of ‘distress’, which currently prohibits the ability and willingness of households to transition to more sustainable heating systems like heat pumps. This is because current timescales for installing heat pumps, for example, mean those households would be left far too long without heat. In addition, we will research and develop a viable business model for installing temporary heating systems for those already in distress situations, buying time to enable those households to make more sustainable decisions. Our aim is to study technical drivers of distress situations in great detail, understand and identify their triggers and impact, alongside human behaviour and attitudes towards heating system transition, and build the software that overcomes these barriers to heat pump adoption using predictive analytic techniques and machine learning. [Thermly Distress Diagnostics: case study](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/695fb26344a6f04b0a5a5ab5/thermly-dd-stream-2-case-study.pdf) ## Nusku Fully UK Designed and Manufactured Heat Pump for Distressed Purchases Accelerator Lead partner: Nusku Ltd Partners: University of Salford Grant total: £727,480.01 ### Project summary The Nusku project aim is to create an innovative heat pump solution which is designed specifically for easy replacement of gas boilers in a cost-effective way, without the need for major internal home rework which most existing heat pump solutions require. The unique approach encompasses all the required heat pump functionality into a sleek, outdoor unit as an all-in-one replacement for a gas boiler, ideal for the distress purchase market. The project will move the solution from TRL5 through to TRL7/8, furthering the technology to a pre-production level solution which will be tested in the Salford Energy House to provide an independent assessment of performance. [Nusku Fully UK Designed and Manufactured Heat Pump for Distressed Purchases Accelerator: case study](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/695fb4b241ddb40d13f76502/nusku-stream-2-case-study.pdf) ## The Flexible Heat Pump Lead partner: Clear Blue Energy Ltd Partners: Sourcethermal Limited, University of Liverpool, Pragmatic Energy Limited Grant total: £773,156.36 ### Project summary The Flexible Heat Pump is a breakthrough innovation in the design and performance of vapour compression heat pumps. An invention of academic partner, the Flexible Heat Pump cycle introduces a heat storage device into the Evans-Perkins cycle to recover, store, and reuse part of the sensible heat carried by the hot liquid refrigerant from the condenser, achieving a higher cycle efficiency. It outperforms the conventional heat pumps, delivering: * increased seasonal Coefficient of Performance (SCoP) by up to 20% * more efficient/rapid defrosting of the evaporator without interrupting the ongoing supply of heat to the building * the ability to integrate multiple heat sources, e.g. recovery of ‘waste’, solar thermal or geothermal heat into an air source heat pump Hence, the Flexible Heat Pump can deliver significantly lower running costs than conventional heat pumps. This addresses a key barriers to mass market adoption of heat pumps – the total cost of ownership (TCO) currently being higher than the incumbent solution, fossil-fuelled boilers. The Flexible Heat Pump has two key innovations which unlock these enhancements of the conventional heat pump cycle: 1. a compact thermal store integral to the vapour compression cycle, enabling the recovery of heat normally wasted to improve CoP, more efficient defrost cycles and secondary sources of heat input to be easily integrated 2. a multi-way valve enabling the operating mode to be changed between heat store charging and discharging The Flexible Heat Pump cycle is applicable to any configuration of vapour compression heat pump and as such, has vast commercial potential. ## Pricing Engine for Heat Pump Subscriptions Lead partner: Fornax Grant total: £293,830 ### Project summary This project aims to deliver an innovative subscription-based model for heat pump deployment that eliminates upfront costs and simplifies the adoption process, making heat pumps financially accessible to a significantly broader range of consumers. The project’s cornerstone is a novel proprietary technology platform that collects, analyses, and models a wide range of relevant data to optimise cost, performance and credit quality. This platform will allow Fornax to deliver its comprehensive, turnkey solution to retrofit customers, simplifying their installation process, ensuring system quality throughout its lifespan, and making heat pumps more affordable for the average homeowner. Our innovations will enable us to price consumer subscriptions accurately, unlocking a sustainable, scalable financing model supported by institutional capital and enabling a unique business model that tackles both the financial and operational barriers to heat pump deployment. By reducing friction along the entire consumer journey and solving the key issue of affordability with a long-term financing solution, this project stands to significantly accelerate the rate of heat pump deployment by 2028. [Pricing Engine for Heat Pump Subscriptions: case study](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/695fb08e44a6f04b0a5a5ab2/fornax-stream-2-case-study.pdf) ## Smart Temperature Automation Technology (STAT) Lead partner: Passiv Grant total: £989,691.00 ### Project summary The UK government has set ambitious targets for supporting the growth of the heat pump market to 600,000 installations annually by 2028. This presents challenges: complex installations, unfamiliar heating and control systems, the risk of increased bills, and poor comfort outcomes. Further systemic problems arise from significantly increased electricity demands from heat pumps that will require a smarter and more flexible energy system. Energy flexibility services will become increasingly valuable, with potential cost reductions of up to £10 billion annually across the energy system by 2050. Smarter heat pump controls will play a central role in achieving these savings. By tapping into these services, heat pumps can offer greater savings to consumers, increasing their attractiveness and rates of uptake. Passiv has invested in developing new heat-pump controls, to be launched in 2024, to address installer and consumer related issues by providing installation and commissioning tools and enhancing the consumer experience through user-friendly hardware and software interfaces that leverage the familiarity and ease of use of traditional thermostats. The Passiv Smart Thermostat (PST) addresses the need for improved efficiency in heat pumps and helps consumers transition to low-carbon heating. It provides ongoing, future-proofed control capabilities including intelligent weather compensation that delivers an EST validated COP improvement of 17%. This project extends the functionality of the PST and enhances the consumer experience based on user feedback from project trials. It will develop a unique hardware prototype that offers standalone connectivity and integration with the smart meter infrastructure, thereby ensuring that all customer groups can benefit from energy flexibility services. In doing so, consumers will benefit from heat pumps that automatically optimise against their electricity tariff and provide a fully automated response to demand flexibility opportunities without the need for consumer intervention or any loss of consumer comfort. PST will reduce the lifetime costs and improve the overall lifetime heat pump performance. These benefits will be available to consumers for the price of a standard connected thermostat product with no service fee. This unique new product will be the first to provide a solution that minimises consumer costs through heat-pump efficiency improvement, tariff optimisation and DSR services. Importantly these benefits will not be constrained to the able-to-pay market, any household can benefit without needing a broadband connection or other technology interface. The consumer experience aims to be best in market, whether through the in-home hardware interfaces, or a mobile app. [Smart Temperature Automation Technology (STAT): case study](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/695fb3a547867b8e14f764fc/passiv-stream-2-case-study.pdf) ## Natural Refrigerant based Heat Pump (NATURAL HEAT) Lead partner: FeTu Grant total: £465,763.11 ### Project summary Achieving Net Zero by 2050 is challenging and requires innovation across the energy system. Heat pumps have been identified as a crucial technology that will be instrumental in such. Uptake in the UK, however, needs to be improved, with recent roadmaps citing a need to install 600,000 heat pumps by 2028. Barriers to uptake still need to be addressed. FeTu’s heat pump, utilising their novel, highly efficient compressor, aims to demonstrate performances (comparable to current state-of-the-art), whilst using natural fluids. This 12-month industrial research project will see such a system’s design, manufacture, assembly, and testing. ## vTherme Hub Lead partner: Vital Energi Utilities Limited Partners: University of Birmingham Grant total: £563,436.40 ### Project summary Deployment of heat pumps in mid- and high-rise buildings is both technically complex and commercial difficult. The Project is the development a standardised modular vTherm Hub (vT Hub) which incorporates innovations in heat generation and storage to supply heat as a service (HaaS) to homes in mid- and high-rise buildings. The vT Hub is designed to simplify and accelerate deployment using inherent flexibility to enable heat to be sold at affordable cost. [vTherme Hub: