This morning we featured on BBC News to discuss the key findings of our new heating report.
We’re on twice! Once at 06:45 (45 minutes) and again at 09:26 (3h 26 minutes).
Funded by UK Research and Innovation‘s Innovate UK and in partnership with Bellway Homes, Barratt Redrow, and Saint-Gobain UK & Ireland, this is the largest research project ever carried out on electrical heating systems under controlled conditions.
The systems tested at Energy House 2.0 covered a range of technologies including infrared heat panels, air source heat pumps, underfloor heating, skirting board heating, and traditional radiators.
The research looked at two different heating patterns: 24-hour constant heating, and a pattern of a house being heated between the hours of 07:00-09:00 in the morning and 16:00-23:00 at night, which is currently used in the standard energy model (SAP) and is the typical way that people live in their homes in the UK. Tests were conducted at both a typical winter temperature of 5°C and also an extreme winter temperature of -5°C within the climate chamber.
Key findings from the research show that:
Air Source Heat Pumps can cost as little as £1.84 on a typical winter day to heat a home and are more efficient than current gas boilers.
The most common method of heating homes in the UK is currently gas boilers, which are designed to reach temperatures of up to 70 °C quickly and be used for short periods of time that fit around the typical consumers’ lifestyle (morning and evening heating). During the extreme winter condition test, the electrified heating systems did not perform well when used in the typical way that consumers with gas boilers would use heating. Consumers with the new heating systems would need to adjust to using them in a more constant way to get the best heat at the most efficient cost.