The Electrification of Heat (EoH) demonstration project is funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and seeks to better understand the feasibility of a large-scale rollout of heat pumps in homes across the UK. It aims to demonstrate that heat pumps can be installed in a wide variety of homes and deliver high customer satisfaction across a range of customer groups.

Outputs derived from the project will include:

• Evidence on heat pump suitability across a range of housing archetypes, including system and installation costs.
• Real-world performance data for heat pumps and demand profiles across a range of housing and consumer types.
• Insights found to inform future government policy in this area

It is believed that the project will create the largest dataset in the UK to date on heat pump performance.  This will provide valuable understanding to both BEIS and the wider sector.

The project had a target to install heat pumps in up to 750 homes across Great Britain, in a representative range of housing archetypes with the majority on the gas grid. The project has recruited participants from the public to go through a customer journey including home survey, heat pump system design and subsequent installation; followed by a period of operational monitoring.

The recruitment and installation phase of the EoH project ran from July 2020 through to September 2021 (longer than originally intended due to the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic).

The data released by this report is the first of several subsequent reports and data releases from the project.  This report provides:

• Key observations from the installation phase of the project
• Definition of the project installation targets
• The total number of heat pump systems installed broken down by type
• Detail of the types and ages of properties in which systems have been installed
• A summary of what percentage of properties were on the gas-grid

Key points

A total of 742 heat pump systems were installed against the project target of up to 750. From the distribution of installations against project targets, the following conclusions can be drawn.

1. The EoH project was successful in installing the full range of heat pump system types into the full range of targeted property types and ages.
2. 80% of the installations were in properties that were connected to the gas grid and where (prior to the heat pump installation), the primary heating system was fuelled by mains gas.
3. The project has not identified any particular type or age of property that cannot have a successful heat pump installation. The suggestion that there are particular home archetypes in Great Britain that are “unsuitable” for heat pumps is not supported by the project data.
4. There were small shortfalls (though within planned tolerances) in the number of installations for properties built pre-1945, with a slight excess in the 1945-1980 age bracket. This is indicative of there being a greater challenge in successfully designing heat pump systems for older homes, however 163 installs were successfully completed in these older properties, clearly showing that such challenges are manageable in many cases.

NOTE: The report below was updated (27th Oct, 2022) with slight changes to the heat pump statistics.