Using flexible electric heating to decarbonise buildings | The three phases of the heat transition | Futurebuild Industry Insider Newsletter 333

We’re living during the deepest energy transition in two centuries. As power generation in the UK is now more than 50% low carbon, the transport and heating sectors are electrifying. Today, domestic heating is responsible for around 18% of the UK’s carbon emissions. So, we need to stop burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and LPG. 

Super-efficient heat pumps and highly-flexible thermal batteries will do most of the heavy lifting for decarbonising buildings. Heat pumps, which are installed with thermal stores for domestic hot water, are becoming more common. In homes where heat pumps are more difficult to install, for instance, because of planning restrictions or limited space, flexible thermal batteries provide hot water and space heating.

As we electrify, heating engineers need to design heating systems to keep people warm and to manage the grid through flexibility. Electrification without flexibility could quadruple peak electricity demand by 2050, with costly grid reinforcement. We can reduce that peak through flexible heating and energy efficiency. This means enabling and incentivising people and businesses to produce and store heat for later use. Thermal batteries have a major role to play. I’m looking forward to joining Futurebuild 2024 in March 2024 to champion this transition.

Using flexible electric heating to decarbonise buildings

Almost everyone agrees that electrification will play a major role in decarbonising heating. That includes independent experts working for the UK and Scottish governments, the Climate Change Committee, the National Infrastructure Commission and the Energy Systems Catapult. Electrification of heat involves a range of heating technologies, including air-source and ground-source heat pumps, heat networks and thermal batteries. Rooftop solar will also have a role to play, particularly for domestic hot water. The technologies for electrifying heating across all types of homes already exist.

To give a sense of the scale of the change required to achieve net zero, by 2050 almost every home in the UK will have a new heating system and many will have had fabric improvements. The UK is looking to upgrade 375 homes every hour every working day for the next 26 years. It is a major infrastructure challenge.

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The three phases of the heat transition

Nesta, the innovation organisation, is thinking hard about heat decarbonisation and has launched various tools, including to lower the flow of combi gas boilers and to check whether your home is suitable for a heat pump. Andrew Sissons, Nesta’s Deputy Director for the mission to create a sustainable future, has published a personal blog on the possible phases of the heat transition.

The blog sets out what the next 25 years could look like for heating buildings. Andrew shows a slow increase over the next few years as people become more accustomed to electric heating options such as heat pumps and thermal batteries and the government scales up policies such as the Clean Heat Market Mechanism. There is then a phase of rapid deployment in the 2030s, with installations of low carbon electric heating hitting over 1 million per year. The third and final phase involves mopping up during the 2040s.

One of the complex challenges in the second phase is what to do with the gas grid. As people electrify their cooking, heating and hot water, they will disconnect from the gas grid. With fewer people to share the burden of maintaining the pipes, gas network costs will increase for those remaining connected. Without policy intervention, this will increase fuel poverty. This is a thorny issue for energy policy and the public finances that those working in the built environment should be aware of.

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I’m taking a stand for heat flexibility

We need to think about how we best use renewable electricity for heating buildings and decarbonising industrial processes. This includes incentivising people and businesses through time-of-use tariffs to flexibly use electricity for heat. Heating engineers increasingly need to consider both the flexibility and the efficiency of heating systems when installing heat pumps and thermal batteries. The heating sector will increasingly work with electricity network operators to understand system capacity and get the balance right between grid upgrades and flexibility markets. Supporting heat flexibility also means supporting innovative British manufacturers. There are great companies out there developing, building and exporting products that save carbon and can lower bills.

Sunamp uses Phase Change Materials to make homes and buildings more energy efficient and sustainable. Sunamp heat batteries can be charged with renewable energy and released to deliver hot water, cooling and space heating on demand. 

tepeo's Zero Emission Boiler (ZEB®) is a direct replacement for a fossil fuel boiler. It stores off-peak electricity inside its core to be used on demand throughout the day to keep costs low. 

Caldera's forthcoming Storage Boiler converts that electricity to heat and stores this efficiently until it is needed. Depending on the industrial process, this heat can be delivered as steam, hot water, thermal oil or hot air. 

tepeo winning the Big Innovations Pitch

It was great to see tepeo win the Big Innovations Pitch at Futurebuild 2023 with their Zero Emissions Boiler. Particularly as they were up against exciting products from Honext, PASS, GreenBlue Urban, armacell & Waterfilled Glass. The Zero Emission Boiler (ZEB®) is a plug-n-play replacement for your existing boiler (gas, oil, lpg, or electric) which works with your hot water tank to deliver low carbon & low cost heating just like your current boiler.

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