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.
If you have any projects in 2020 for which you would like to consider installing a heat pump please get in touch today. We do all the design, sizing and MCS Certification, so whether you are an individual homeowner, a plumbing & heating engineer, a developer or builder, or an architect or consultant, we can apply our expertise to design the correct system for your project. By working with Alto Energy we ensure you or your client have access to all of the benefits that installing a heat pump can deliver.
What Happened In 2019
New partners
We welcomed new installation and housebuilder partners in their droves. With increasing consumer awareness and demand for low carbon technologies, we have spoken with hundreds of experienced heating installers and housebuilders.
By working with Alto Energy, we make installing heat pumps, and accessing all the benefits of heat pump technology, as simple as possible. Through our unique business model, we handle all of the complex design work and MCS paperwork. This ensures each homeowner with one of our heat pumps has a system that is designed properly, is fully accredited for any grant payments they might be eligible for, and has a full suit of warranties and insurance protection.
New employees
In 2019 we welcomed two new employees to our team.
Tom Cattell joined us as a Sales Trainee in July. He attended Grand Designs Exhibition in October and spoke to hundreds of potential customers, so if you find yourself speaking to Tom over the coming months you will be well looked after.
You can read more about Tom's appointment in our blog - New Appointment - Tom Cattell Joins Our Sales Team.
Sam Keats joined us as a Technical Support apprentice in September. He is doing an apprenticeship with us jointly with Abingdon & Witney College. This is our first formal apprenticeship, but we hope it will be the first of many over the coming years as we look to develop an expert workforce as our business grows.
You can read more about Sam's appointment in our blog - New Appointment - Sam Keats Joins Our Support Team.
Record new installations
We commissioned more new heat pump installations in 2019, with an increase of 21% compared to 2018!
This result was very pleasing, especially considering that the vast majority of our customers find their way to us via recommendation. We hope this means that we are doing something right, designing and supplying high quality, efficient heat pump systems alongside our excellent wrap-around customer service and guarantees.
What to expect from Alto Energy in 2020
The next 12 months promise to be very exciting for Alto Energy. The Directors' priority this year is to establish a solid foundation from which the business can grow in a sustainable manner over the next decade, as heat pumps become more mainstream.
Below we list some of the key highlights we have planned for this year.
New Premises
As we grow our business and increase the range of products we stock here in the UK, we will be moving to larger premises later this year.
We have secured a site near our current base in West Oxfordshire which provides a significantly larger office and warehouse space. The site also has the potential for further increases in capacity should it be required in the future.
Increased Engineering Capacity
We increased our engineering capacity in 2018 when we took on our 5th heat pump engineer. However, due to the ever increasing number of heat pumps we install, as well as a growing number of existing heat pump customers coming to us for their service requirements, we need to increase that capacity further.
Through 2020, we will be looking to grow our engineering capacity so that we can provide a better reactive service for heat pump breakdowns, whilst we continue to provide excellent customer service to our new heat pump customers who require surveys and commissioning visits!
New Commercial Division
As the UK distributor for IVT Bosch Thermotechnology products, we have exclusive access to the best commercial ground source heat pumps on the market.
The IVT GEO range of commercial ground source heat pump enables us to design heat pump solutions for projects with heat loads up to 1MW.
With projects of this size, designing borehole arrays and plant rooms requires complex engineering, which lends itself to a specialist contractor to design and build these elements of the work. To this end, we are planning on launching a specialist commercial contracting business to deliver amazing commercial-scale ground source heat pump projects in the South of England. Watch this space for further updates!
New ivt Products
Towards the end of last year we made the significant announcement that IVT Heat Pump prices would be frozen for 2020. Alongside Bosch, we decided that to support the growing heat pump market we wanted to hold prices so that we could keep heat pumps as competitive as possible, to persuade as many people as we can to ditch fossil fuel heating and choose a heat pump!
You can read more about this announcement in our blog - IVT Heat Pump Prices Frozen for 2020.
During the summer of 2019 we visited the IVT headquarters in Tranas, Sweden. Here, we discussed a number of new and exciting products which were soon going to be available for the UK market. We can't say too much more at this stage, but keep your eyes peeled for new product launches towards the end of this year and early in 2021.
What to expect in the heat pump industry this decade
The next decade will see a seismic shift in the way we heat our homes in this country. Here are two of the many reasons why:
Heat Pumps Mandatory in New Builds
By 2025 the UK government will ban the installation of fossil fuel boilers in new build homes. This paves the way for heat pumps to become the mainstream option as the most efficient way of using electricity to provide heating and hot water to the home.
You can read more about this in our blog - Government Pledges to Ban Boilers in New Homes by 2025.
We are already seeing a growing number of innovative housebuilders choosing heat pumps as standard for their developments. Working with Alto Energy ensures that choosing heat pumps is easy, so if you're a developer considering the heating options for your next project, get in touch!
Widespread Adoption of Heat Pumps Throughout the UK
There is most certainly a growing understanding amongst the public for the need to change the way we use energy in our day to day lives. We need to make fairly drastic changes in order to help prevent the impact of irreversible climate change.
Furthermore, in a turbulent world relying on foreign gas and oil imports is always a risk. The UK is blessed with abundant wind and tidal energy sources which will enable us to generate the vast majority of our energy requirements from renewable sources in the form of renewable electricity.
Heat pumps are the best and most efficient way to provide heating and hot water to UK homes from electricity. Only a small amount of electricity is required to power the intelligent refrigeration system inside the heat pump which extracts energy from either the ground or the air, depending on which type of heat pump you install. For every unit of electricity consumed, between 3 and 4 units of useful heat are delivered to the property.
This makes heat pumps not only cleaner and greener than fossil fuels, but also cheaper to run. As more people realise the benefits of heat pumps, combined with UK policy which will both incentivise and potentially mandate energy efficiency improvements, we will see the widespread adoption of heat pumps, with fossil fuels making way.