Heat pump installations in the UK have already exceeded last year’s total, setting a new milestone for the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) with three months still to go in 2024. By the end of September, 42,000 installations were completed—outpacing 2023's total by approximately 4%.
The UK government is launching the Warm Homes Grant in 2025, an exciting initiative aimed at helping homeowners make their properties more energy-efficient. This fully funded scheme is available to those who meet certain criteria and could significantly reduce your energy costs while lowering your home's carbon footprint.
This week, the UK's last coal power station closed, signalling that the country’s energy landscape is undergoing a massive transformation. For over 200 years, coal was king, powering industry and homes alike. But today, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydro are rapidly replacing fossil fuels in the national grid. With that change comes a new challenge—and opportunity—for those of us in the heating and plumbing industry.
With the UK election out the way and a new government in place, we feel it’s important to explore the potential implications for the heat pump market now that Labour has taken the helm. For plumbers, particularly those considering diversifying into heat pump installations, Labour's anticipated measures could present significant opportunities in the evolving green energy sector.
The UK remains overly dependent on natural gas, according to the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), which provides independent recommendations to the government.
In its recent annual assessment, the NIC highlights the urgent need to reduce reliance on high-cost, high-carbon natural gas and accelerate the adoption of heat pump technology to meet the ambitious net zero targets by 2050. According to the Commission, decarbonising buildings is a critical aspect of this transition and represents the single biggest challenge on the path to net zero.
Green policies are a priority of the UK Government, and 2020 saw a number of huge policies which are going to have a significant impact driving the UK heat pump market. From the extension of the Renewable Heat Incentive (“RHI”), to the introduction of the new Green Homes Grant, and the reconfirmation that low carbon heating will be deployed in all new properties within just a few years.
We have entered a 3rd National lockdown in the space of a year, and so we want to take this opportunity to reassure our customers that it is business as usual here at Alto Energy. We are open normal times, offering all heat pump maintenance and support, and working on new heat pump projects. Staff who can work from home will be, and our engineers are still on the road to carrying out work on your heat pump systems.
As we prepare to go into another national lockdown, we want to reassure customers that we will still be operating at full capacity as we go into our busiest period of the year. We count our good fortune that 2020 has actually been our busiest year to date despite everything going on in the world, and so we are grateful to our customers for supporting us during this difficult time.
Another year has flown by! Clearly time flies when you're designing, supplying, commissioning and supporting heat pumps! Alto Energy has now completed its third full year in business and we go into our fourth year with a great sense of excitement and anticipation for what's to come for the heat pump industry.
In this blog, we reflect on an amazing year for Alto Energy - and the heat pump industry as a whole - in 2019. We also look forward to the next year and the next decade, in what are incredibly exciting times for heat pumps and their ever increasing role in wider global efforts to live in a more environmentally friendly way.
This is the total number of combined ground source and air source heat pump commissionings completed by Alto Energy throughout the country. We've only been registered with the Microgeneration Certification Scheme ("MCS") for a little over a year, and so this number is something we are very proud of!
