Planning change makes heat pump installations easier for homes

A major planning restriction that heat pumps require one meter from neighbor’s property have been lifted as the government wants to accelerate taking low carbon technology.

Changes, which are part of the government’s Warm Homes plan, plan to reduce domestic bills and cut planetary warming emissions, which means that it can be easy to install heat pumps for millions of homes in England.

But consumer groups warn that changes will not help those on rent or in leasehold properties and the biggest barrier to install a heat pump remains high advance costs.

This is a special problem for old housing stock where pipework and insulation can also be required.

Most Britain houses use gas boilers for their hot water and heating, but it produces Heating greenhouse gases up to 14% of the country.

In comparison, heat pumps use electricity, so as countries produce more power than renewable energy sources such as solar and air, they can produce much less emissions than boilers.

But it is expensive to switch to the heat pump from the gas boiler and is not straight if you live in one of the six million staircase in England.

Till Thursday, the owners of the house required the permission of the plan if they wanted to put a heat pump within one meter of their neighbor’s property – because of concerns on the noise.

Tom Clarke, a gas engineer, who recently had to retreat to fit heat pumps, said that applying for the permission of the scheme was a barrier to his customers.

“When you see in London we have the weight and weight of the terraced houses and no matter whether you do not keep the equipment on the site, it is always living within one meter of the border,” he said.

This was particularly problematic for the people instead of a broken gas boiler because many customers would not want to go more than a month waiting for the council’s approval, he said.

It is echoed by the Octopus Energy, who told the Energy Security and Net Zero of Parliament in 2023 that this was the plan rule To affect 27% of your customers.

The company wrote in its submission, “Those who try to move forward on an average of eight to 10 weeks. Even if customers meet all the requirements, there is no guarantee that local councils will be allowed, as all of them have different interpretations of central planning guidelines.” “The combined effect of all these things means that very few of the 27% of the customers requiring the plan have created to install it.”

Now the rule has been removed to speed up the sharp pumps. Previous concerns on noise are less than an issue with new devices, although units will still need to be below a certain amount of level.

Planning changes include exemption of rules for size and number of heat pumps, homes can be installed.

Houses with the most likely affected are living in terraced housing. In 2021, he took 23% of 5.7 million houses, or total. Some of these will still require the permission of the plan, for example people living in conservation areas.

This change is part of the government’s Warm Homes Plan which aims to upgrade 300,000 homes to improve its energy efficiency and low bills.

Although the heat pump industry welcomed the changes, the main barrier for many customers indicates that installing heat pumps is expensive, especially in older houses, where better insulation may also be required.

This was a case in the Social Housing Estate Sutton houses in Chelsea, London, which underwent complete renewal of its fabric with a new ground source heat pump network.

Its landlord, the Clarian Housing Group received a grant from the government to establish the new network, but also invested its own money.

Stuart Gadsden, Commercial Director, Company, which designed and established the system, said it was an issue for many landlords: “A big [barrier] Funding is, it clearly spends more than a traditional gas boiler system.

“We have funding from Warm Homes Social Housing Fund in the Social Housing Sector, but it was oversized by double. Many housing associations want to do less carbon heating, but not enough to go around.”

Hired people have to trust the landlords who are ready to invest the initial upfronts.

Rob Lane, Cherian Chief Property Officer, stated that the company was happy to do so in the satton housing due to the impact for the residents: “We are waiting to see how the cost of running this system goes out, but our forecasts suggest that each house is average £ 450 – + 500 per house (each year) – there is a lot of savings for the residents.”

From 2030, as part of the Warm Homes Plan, all private landlords will have mandatory requirements to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties.

But the way the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is currently calculated, it means that the gas boiler can sometimes have a better rating than the heat pump as it sees the cost of energy and believes that the gas is cheaper.

Katy King, Deputy Director of Stability in Charity Nesta, said that the government can reduce the cost of electricity.

He said, “UK has some of the most expensive power prices in Europe. The government can carry the levies from electricity and keep them on gas or use general taxation. It’s a difficult option and one we hope that they are consulting them within the year,” he said.

A spokesperson of the Energy Safety Department and a NET Zero said: “We are supporting the industry to develop financing models that can completely remove the upfront cost, and consult on new views, such as heat pump memberships, help to help the cleaner heating to help in more houses that work for them.”