Clean Heat Streets launched in Oxford to probe viability of domestic heat pumps
A consortium has been launched to investigate the feasibility of a high density deployment of domestic heat pumps in Oxford.
The Clean Heat Streets project aims to connect local communities to local installers while removing barriers from the current installation process of heat pumps.
It has been funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s Heat Pump Ready Programme, which has been funded through the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP).
Led by the leading manufacturer of heat pumps, Samsung, the consortium also includes Oxford and Oxford Brookes Universities, Oxfordshire County Council, boiler specialists BOXT, behaviour technologists Gengame, and energy & utilities decarbonisation experts SMS PLC. Clean Heat Streets is aiming to develop a customer offer for fully installed and maintained smart heat pumps which will be trialled initially within the local Oxford community.
If successful, Phase 2 of the Clean Heat Streets project would consist of 750 heat pumps being installed in a community of 3,000 homes in the City of Oxford. The project would also involve the training of local gas heating engineers who will work alongside the county and city councils and finance providers to increase availability of the scheme. Installations will be carried out by BOXT.
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Andy Kerr, CEO & Founder of BOXT said: ‘‘It has always been important at BOXT to lead the way and innovate by disrupting and modernising the heating industry and we see this as the crucial next step in developing the future of renewable heating in the UK. It allows us to expand the fixed, fair pricing model that has made BOXT so successful within the gas boiler industry to the renewable energy products’ by removing friction and cost from the current process.’’
Air source heat pumps, sometimes called air-to-water source heat pumps, transfer heat from the outside air to water used in heating rooms, showers and baths.
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