The heating issue

Local network planning will increasingly need to take into account the decarbonisation of heat as the replacement of polluting gas boilers with low-carbon technologies is scaled up across homes and businesses.

According to an analysis by the Climate Change Committee, the UK needs to achieve ‘near total’ decarbonisation of buildings if it is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which will demand a package of policies and initiatives that target specific challenges in the market.

One particular obstacle to the uptake of heat pumps – currently the most mature option for decarbonising domestic heating – is distress purchases, whereby polluting gas boilers break down in the winter and homeowners default to replacing them with new gas boilers.

Distress purchases comprise around 70% of the market, as consumers' panic over a lack of hot water or heating discourages them from taking the time to get a DNO to check if an alternative energy system can be put in.

SSEN is working with trade body the Heat Pump Federation and other organisations to tackle this issue through the innovative Connection Readiness project.

Rather than simply attempt to respond faster when customers phone up asking for a connection, the aim is to give consumers information on the status of their home’s ability to connect a heat pump well in advance of a boiler failure. It’s hoped that these details could encourage a much larger proportion into switching over to the clean heating option.

According to Bean Beanland, director for growth & external affairs, Heat Pump Federation, the initiative has been driven in part through conversations with the Centre for Net Zero (CNZ), an offshoot of Octopus Energy.

CNZ is calling on the government to introduce a ‘Smart Building Rating’ (SBR), designed to measure a building’s capacity for flexibility, smart electrification and low-carbon technologies, such as EV chargers, batteries and solar panels, which could encourage consumers to make property upgrades. The rating would work alongside reforms to Energy Performance Certificates, designed to measure and improve the energy efficiency of buildings.

DNOs could complete a “third piece of the jigsaw", says Beanland, by providing consumers with a certificate of readiness confirming that their home supply is ready to accept an appropriate heat pump solution. The certificate would demonstrate that the network operator “has looked at your site, interrogated your EPC, assessed the direct connection and the state of the network back to the nearest transformer, estimating the scale of heat pump solution required”.

The intention is to nudge consumers, homeowners and potentially landlords to a position “where they're thinking about owning this technology before they've even thought about it”, says Beanland. “If SSEN, UK Power Networks, or another network operator is saying my site is ready for a heat pump connection and I've got an EPC and an SBR telling me that I could be really smart with my energy costs, and it's cheaper to run a heat pump than a gas boiler, then perhaps I should be thinking about it."