Interest in heat pumps is growing in Europe, with a focus on actual installations in Germany and the UK. Guests include Jens Dertenkötter, a German heating installation business owner, Tessa Clark, an LCP Delta expert, and Daniel Logue, an Energy Systems Catapult consultant. They discuss installation rates, the proportion of heat pumps, and compare the markets in the UK and Germany.
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] – Jon Slowe
Welcome to Talking New Energy, a podcast from LCP Delta. The new energy experts. In the podcast, we'll be exploring how the energy transition is unfolding across Europe through conversations with guests from the leading edge of the transition.
Hello and welcome to the episode interested in heat is rising and rising across many parts of Europe, and today we're looking at how that interest is turning into actual installations. We'll take a look at experiences in Germany and the UK, and to do this, I'm joined by three excellent guests. Let's say hello to them. First, Jens Dertenkötter who runs a heating installation business in Germany. Hello, Jens.
[00:00:48] – Jens Dertenkötter
Hello, Jon.
[00:00:50] – Jon Slowe
Jens, you employ about 35 people in your business. Can you give us a feel for how many heating installations you install every year?
[00:00:58] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yeah, we're doing about 70 to 80 units a year, and we talked about this before and about last year, the first time ever, about half of the units were heat pumps, some sort, and only the other half then gas boilers and yeah, so that's progressing okay.
[00:01:17] – Jon Slowe
And how has that been at that 50 / 50 ratio for a while, or heat pumps increasing over the last years?
[00:01:25] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yeah, I think it's about ten years ago that I installed the first one, and this year we're looking at about a 70 to 30 ratio. So about 70% heat pumps and 30% boilers.
[00:01:37] – Jon Slowe
Wow, that's changing faster rapidly.
[00:01:40] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yes.
[00:01:40] – Jon Slowe
Yeah. Can you remember the first heat pump you installed?
[00:01:43] – Jens Dertenkötter
Oh, yeah, for sure. I was quite scared, actually, and quite a bit of support of the manufacturer. And it went well in the end, but it was a challenge, and I can see that lots of my colleagues are hesitating and will take a while until all the installers get used to it. And there was also a talk about maybe the electricians would take over and all that, but it didn't happen. I think it's more installers.
[00:02:10] – Jon Slowe
Sounds like your 35 or so colleagues are getting used to heat pumps now.
[00:02:14] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yeah, some of them actually get kind of boring to install gas boilers now. They'd rather install heat pumps.
[00:02:20] – Jon Slowe
Yeah. Let's say hello to our second and third guests. Second, Tessa Clark, one of our experts here at LCP Delta. Hello, Tessa.
[00:02:30] – Tessa Clark
Hi, Jon.
[00:02:31] – Jon Slowe
And Daniel Logue, a consultant at the Energy Systems Catapult. Hello, Daniel.
[00:02:36] – Daniel Logue
Hi, Jon.
[00:02:37] – Jon Slowe
So, Tessa and Daniel, you were both involved, still involved in a big government funded project that installed 742 heat pumps. A large number of heat pumps. Daniel, can you describe in a nutshell what the project was about and what it did?
[00:02:54] – Daniel Logue
Yes. So, the project was the Electrification of Heat demonstration project, which, as you said, is funded by the government. It had three delivery contractors, E.ON, OVO and Warmworks, who were responsible for recruiting participants and eventually overseeing or actually performing the installations themselves. And that was across a wide variety of housing types and participant groups. All of the heat pumps were installed in 2020 or 2021, and since they've been being monitored, and that's been allowing us to assess the performance and draw conclusions on success or failure of those heat pumps.
[00:03:36] – Jon Slowe
So, it's looking at the whole process, Daniel, then, from the initial engagement of customers through to the performance of the heat pumps in the years after they've been installed.
[00:03:47] – Daniel Logue
Exactly, yes. So, from point of first contact, having some kind of home survey and system design, and then eventually either agreeing to that design or not. And the ones that agreed had a heat pump installation and then yeah, we've been monitoring them and so far, they've been operating really well and successfully heating the homes with good consumer outcomes.
[00:04:13] – Jon Slowe
And the learnings from that will feed back into government policy as it moves forward. Decarbonising heat in the UK.
[00:04:24] – Daniel Logue
Yes, exactly.
[00:04:27] – Jon Slowe
Tessa, you were involved in the trial as well, but I'd like to ask you just for a bit of perspective on how the UK and Germany compare, given that the two countries we're looking at in terms of heat pumps, talking about government trial in the UK. And Jens is installing well this year, 75% of the heating systems this company installs will be heat pumps. So how do the UK and Germany compare?
[00:04:51] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yeah, so Germany is ahead of the UK in terms of heat pump sales and the heat pump market. So, if we looked at how many heat pumps have been installed in those two countries, in Germany, there's about one and a half million hydronic heat pumps in the UK, less than half a million. But also, if we looked at sales from last year, from 2022, the heat pump sales in Germany are a lot higher than the UK, but also in terms of the share of heat pumps compared to other types of heating systems, that is a lot higher in Germany compared to the UK.
[00:05:28] – Jon Slowe
What are those shares like?
[00:05:30] – Jens Dertenkötter
So, the share is 25% in Germany. So, one in four heat systems in Germany last year was a heat pump, and in the UK it's more like 4%.
[00:05:40] – Jon Slowe
Wow. Big change. Yeah. So, Jens, you're ahead of the curve, then, with 50% or 75 being heat pumps, you're ahead of the German market, right?
[00:05:48] – Jens Dertenkötter
We've been on once, yes.
[00:05:53] – Jon Slowe
So, let's divide the discussion into two parts. First of all, look at customer engagement and the process where the customer decides to go ahead with installing a heat pump. And then secondly, some of the technical aspects of installation. So, Jens, coming to you first. Are customers coming to you saying, Jens, I am determined to have a heat pump, or are they coming to you saying, yes, I need a new heating system, and are you pushing the heat pump or is it somewhere in between?
[00:06:26] – Jens Dertenkötter
They actually do come to me and say, we've got an old system, need a new one, and a lot of them come and say, I don't think we can install a heat pump because I've heard they're not efficient enough and it can't be retrofit and all that. And lots of the older generation is quite sceptical, which is probably due to effect that 30 or 40 years ago we already had quite a few heat pumps installed which didn't go that well. But it seems that younger people are more open about installing those systems. And I mean, to all of those I can put forward, I can show them that it can be done sometimes a bit more effort or a bit less effort, but they are quite well informed through internet and so and so on. But there's quite a few myths that is stuck in their heads which aren't right, which you have to correct in the conversation.
[00:07:20] – Jon Slowe
And in a way, the easy thing for you to do could be to install a gas boiler. So, if they say, oh, I need a new heating system, I've heard of heat pumps, but they're quite difficult, aren't they? Are there many installers, you think, that are doing that, or do you think actually a lot of installers like you like educating customers, giving them the facts and then the customer can make a choice?
[00:07:43] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yeah, there's definitely quite a few who just rather take the quick, easy boiler, but I think that's pretty short sighted, and I think if you want to be around and you want to be successful, you have to be open about this. And the latest regulation talk in Germany shows you that the electrification of that heating is going to go forward, especially in combination with PV and batteries and all that jazz. Definitely heat pumps is the way forward and that's what I'm showing, and I want to be up to date modern company. So, yeah, that's my focus.
[00:08:22] – Jon Slowe
Last question before I come to Tessa, you said people are concerned about will hoop heat pumps work? When you start explaining it, what would you say are the key concerns of customers or the key things they focus on before committing to a heat pump?
[00:08:39] – Jens Dertenkötter
Right, so one thing is definitely the costs long term, so they actually would now invest quite a bit of money but not actually saving in the end. That's one of the concerns for inefficiency. And the other concern is that if you come to them in store, to fit the system, you'd have to rip the half the house apart and rip floors up and pipes new radiators and I don't know what. And actually, one of the biggest concern is the outside. So, do I end up with a big white box in front of my house or do I put it beside my house and disturb the neighbours? And those things are the biggest concerns of people that in the end, when they do go for OER, why not put a heat pump in?
[00:09:24] – Jon Slowe
And the running costs are the running costs in terms of the ripping the house apart. Do you need to do that much? Or can you normally find ways to do it without ripping the house apart?
[00:09:36] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yeah, you can, definitely. You need to take that fee away. Of course, quite a few things need to be done, but there's always ways around putting pipes through the ground into the house, or say to them, look, talk to your neighbour. He might want to have a heat pump sometime. Why don't you agree to put them in the same place, vice versa and stuff like that. There's lots of ways of doing these things, and I think I don't know about a single heat pump where I couldn't show ways of how to install them.
[00:10:11] – Jon Slowe
Yeah, okay. And would you say you've learned over the years from that first heat pump to the 50%, 75% proportion of heat pumps? Have you learned a lot about sort of tips and tricks, about how you can minimise disruption to the house?
[00:10:25] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yeah, definitely. And you do look around and you see how other people have done their heat pumps and stuff, and you think, oh, that's a nice one. I picked it up next time.
[00:10:35] – Jon Slowe
Yeah, okay. So, there's a learning process for doing things in the least disruptive way for customers.
[00:10:42] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yes.
[00:10:46] – Jon Slowe
Tessa, in the UK trial, you weren't selling heat pumps, you were giving heat pumps away. So, giving something away, I imagine, would be more straightforward. But how easy was that in finding those 742 customers?
[00:11:01] – Tessa Clark
Yeah. So, in terms of getting people interested in a heat pump, I'd say that was the easier part of the project. So, the project was really successful in getting almost 9000 expressions of interest in the project. There was a lot of promotion that went behind that, a lot of targeting of certain areas. But absolutely, getting that initial interest in getting a heat pump was the easier part, I suppose, in contrast to kind of what Jens is doing, this is in the context of a project. So, we were targeting people who weren't necessarily looking to replace their heating system at the time or hadn't previously heard of heat pumps. So quite a different sort of audience. But then when we look at taking forward those customers to install a heat pump, that is where the challenge, I think, lies. And converting interest into install was a lot more difficult.
[00:11:59] – Jon Slowe
Yeah. So, it was much more a push. Who would like to be involved in this trial? Who would like interested in a free heat pump? What were the questions people had that maybe caused some of that dropout, or where people were interested, but when they actually if that's what entails no, I'm not.
[00:12:18] – Tessa Clark
Yeah. So, we recorded sort of the reasons for people dropping out, and one in two customers who declined to go forward for a heat pump installation cited disruption as their main barrier. And most of that was the disruption of things. We've just been talking about ripping up your floorboards to put in new pipe work. The aesthetics of what that then looks like, having to fit larger radiators, mostly, the sort of internal works. Perhaps having to move out of your home for a couple of days while that install happens.
[00:12:55] – Jon Slowe
Jens, what do you think of that? How does that contrast with your experience from what you've heard from Tessa?
[00:13:02] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yeah. People in Germany aren't so much concerned about the inside, the outside of the house. What do the neighbours think is the bigger concern? For some reason, it's interesting, maybe because we got bigger properties here, generally, or bigger, more space, and often the older houses got cellers where you can put them, of course. And people don't really move out, they're actually quite interested in seeing what's going on. So, I always offer, give us a key, and go on holiday, come back and they pump it in. But no, they don't want to.
[00:13:36] – Jon Slowe
They want to see what you're doing.
[00:13:38] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yeah.
[00:13:39] – Jon Slowe
Tessa, what else did you learn in that dropout? Or did you look at people's experiences with installation and what they liked and didn't like? Or in reality, was it disruptive as they thought it might be?
[00:13:52] – Tessa Clark
Yeah, we didn't actually have sort of results on kind of people's thoughts after the installation, but I think the main sort of learning was really managing expectations. So, I think at the start of the project, we were finding that customers were going quite a long way through the heat pump journey, as it were, and then were quite surprised about the level of disruption that they were going to entail. And so, then we're dropping out. So actually, the learning from the delivery contractors was to start having that conversation earlier on in the journey and explaining to customer a bit more what this is going to entail. Obviously, that leads to people then dropping out at an earlier stage, but it also makes people more likely to stay in because they understand what's going to happen rather than be a surprise later on.
[00:14:40] – Jon Slowe
Yeah. Or you could say it gives them a chance for conversations to happen around that. And how can we minimise it in.
[00:14:47] – Daniel Logue
From ongoing engagement with the customers throughout the project, obviously, as I say, with us monitoring the heat pumps, generally, most customers who had installations have been happy with their experience. Obviously, there are a few niggles and things that people are unhappy with, as there always will be in projects, but also just in life with making changes to people's houses. But generally, people have been happier, and it might be because they were willing to accept there was some disruption, or that the disruption might not have been as bad as they might have thought, pre installation.
[00:15:29] – Jon Slowe
Sounds like even in Germany, where 25% of heating installations are heat pumps, that's still a big question on people's minds. Will you have to rip up my home? Jens it's one of the three that you said.
[00:15:44] – Jens Dertenkötter
Absolutely. What I would like to know, Tessa, when people had the installations, did you have feedback on the noise and stuff? Because that's a big question here. How noisy this going to be? And then you first turn it off. Of course, it's all listening looking and people, oh, I don't know about it, but in every day, do you get feedback of how the noise is accepted?
[00:16:04] – Tessa Clark
Daniel might be better to answer that, but one thing I would say is that when we were first planning the project, at the beginning, we kind of had an idea of what we thought consumer barriers were going to be to getting a heat pump. And noise and aesthetics of the outdoor unit was two of the things we thought would be the highest barriers. And I don't think any customers, or very few customers turned down a heat pump for those reasons. They actually were very minimal in terms of barriers.
[00:16:34] – Daniel Logue
Yeah. On the actual project, I think generally people have not been unhappy with the noise. We haven't had any complaints or anything about noise. Also, outside of that project, Catapult did a survey with our living lab asking people how noisy do they think heat pumps are going to be? And the majority of people thought that they were going to be noisier than they actually are in terms of looking at other household appliances and how noisy they are. So, I think there's a perception, probably beforehand that they're going to be noisier than they are when they're actually installed, is what I draw from that.
[00:17:17] – Jon Slowe
Jens, how does that compare to your experiences? Is noise a big issue for customers before or after?
[00:17:23.410] – Jens Dertenkötter
Absolutely. And we did have things where, actually, one interesting case where the neighbour had came over and I can hear a heat pump, and at the time, it wasn't actually on just because she could see it, she could hear it. I mean, that's an extreme case, but I do have to say I'm with Daniel. The units are very quiet now in comparison to the first ones we had.
[00:17:47] – Jon Slowe
Yeah. So, it's more a perception and a mythbuster.
[00:17:51] – Jens Dertenkötter
And also, the visibility of it. We actually did one guy has a bigger home, it's got two heat pumps in front of his house, and we took all these, stripped all the covers off and painted them in the same colours as his window frames. You can do lots of things to make people happy about the pump. And in the end, I hadn't have a single person who wasn't happy with the noise and visibility later on.
[00:18:19] – Jon Slowe
Daniel, we've talked a bit about will my floorboards need to be ripped up. Can you tell us a bit about what you learned on the installation side and maybe some of the technical aspects around installing hundreds of heat pumps in UK homes?
[00:18:39] – Daniel Logue
Yeah, so, first of all, the thing that I would say is that it's a bit more complicated than replacing a gas boiler with a gas boiler because you're looking at the whole heating system or the whole house as a system. So potentially reassessing heat losses, which you might not do of a gas boiler replacement, but also assessing the heating system and can that deliver the heat needed at lower or a more optimal temperature. So, customers went through, I've already mentioned a home survey and a detailed design that potentially identify any retrofit measures that are needed both in terms of heating system and home. And then when sort of that survey and detailed design came out, customers would then have the opportunity to either progress through to a heat pump installation or drop out. And obviously, as we already mentioned, when you're talking about retrofitting somebody's house, they might say actually, that's too much disruption for put up with.
[00:19:49] – Jon Slowe
And what were the typical retrofit things? You're talking like putting in a bigger radiator or new pipe work or both, or was it really varied in terms of what you came across?
[00:20:02] – Daniel Logue
I think every house is different, so it's variable. But through the electrification of heat project, most properties had at least one radiator replaced. That's the main retrofit measure that I would say. And actually, in terms of energy efficiency, so we talk about the UK's housing stock maybe not being very efficient, but only 15% of properties needed energy efficiency upgrades on the project. So, yeah, most of it is radiator replacements, I would say. And then some of that comes with pipe work replacements as well.
[00:20:44] – Jon Slowe
It sounds like, compared to your experience in Germany. Are you replacing radiators much when you're retrofitting heat pumps?
[00:20:51] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yes, some of the old houses we actually do, we've joined an online platform where people can actually put in, because the biggest thing of collecting the data around radiators and heat, or the necessary heat to heat the room, is to gather all the data around it. So, this is an online portal where you can put in all your data about your radiators and your rooms and stuff, and then that comes to you, to us, and it actually analyses already whether radiator fits or not. And that's something that the people can do themselves. It takes about 3 or 4 hours to get all these things together, but they actually like it, they're dealing with their own house, and we get all the results, and we can later on use it for the hydraulics to adjust hydraulics to change a couple of radiators. So that helps a lot. That's the single housing. And then of course, you got the multiple dwellings where you might have a whole lot of boilers in a row and then you can't replace or don't want to replace and want to put the heat pump in. And in those houses, of course gets a bit more difficult.
But we often put in take a whole like four or five units on top of each other, and they're connected to the chimney. They use the chimneys to put the pipe through and then feed the hot water from the centralised heat pump into the different multiple dwellings okay. And produce the heat and hot water at the point where the boiler was before. So, all these can be done. And as I said before, almost every installation you find a way of replacing with just a few changes.
[00:22:35] – Jon Slowe
Yeah.
[00:22:37] – Daniel Logue
I think that's really interesting and kind of aligns with what we've found on the study. Is there's sort of a perception that certain house types or house ages might not be suitable for a heat pump, but generally there is a way some are more difficult, but there's normally a way to get a heat pump installed in these houses.
[00:23:02] – Jon Slowe
Did you get many dropping out? Because technically it just wasn't going to work, or it would be too difficult.
[00:23:10] – Daniel Logue
Yeah. So, when they went to survey stage, about two thirds of the properties were recommended a heat pump, meaning that about one third dropped out. Some of the bigger reasons for that were practical constraints. So, space both indoors and outdoors for the different heat pump units, and then technical constraints were largely down to size of the heat pump. And that's a project constraint as much as it is a heat pump constraint. So, the project limited the size of heat pump that could blow on any house.
[00:23:45] – Jon Slowe
Okay.
[00:23:46] – Daniel Logue
But there are obviously technical constraints relating to excessive heat loss as well.
[00:23:52] – Jon Slowe
The biggest one is the space in terms of that, the dropout.
[00:23:56] – Daniel Logue
Yes.
[00:23:57] – Jens Dertenkötter
What we do also here is lots of hybrids. So, if somebody really doesn't want to change a whole house around, make it more efficient, or maybe it's rented flats and they don't want to disturb the people, we do install hybrids. So just the main gas boiler replacement together with a heat pump for the times when not much heat is needed.
[00:24:25] – Jon Slowe
Yeah. Interesting. And there were no hybrids in this trial, were there, Daniel?
[00:24:29] – Daniel Logue
There were, yeah. So, again, had quite a few hybrids.
[00:24:33] – Jon Slowe
Okay.
[00:24:33] – Daniel Logue
And yeah, they overcame some of the constraints that we've sort of mentioned, particularly do with space because there were some novel hybrids where the heat pump could actually be installed inside alongside the boiler.
[00:24:48] – Jens Dertenkötter
I wasn't a big fan of hybrid before because I thought it's two whole system installed, no advantage. But actually, hybrids are actually the key to get the last few percentages where really you need high temperatures and stuff. Hybrid is working really well.
[00:25:05] – Jon Slowe
I've got a hybrid in my house.
[00:25:08] – Jens Dertenkötter
You know what I'm talking about.
[00:25:10] – Jon Slowe
I do. Let's keep in our time. And now I think we'll bring up the talking new energy crystal ball this week. I'm going to set the dial to 2030. So, seven years away. A lot happened in sort of the seven years or so you said, from your Hearst heat pump to what you're doing now. So, seven years, a lot can happen. Let's imagine heat pump markets have grown really strongly in each country, so maybe doubling in size in Germany and going up by several times in the UK. So, heat pumps really becoming a major part of the heating markets. So, my question to each of you in 2030, imagine yourself there with lots of heat pumps. What's the key thing that will have to have changed when it comes to turning customer interest into installations? So, what will have to happen between now and then to convert interest to installations? And second question, do you believe what's in the crystal ball? Daniel let's start with you.
[00:26:23] – Daniel Logue
Yeah, so obviously in the UK, we've got this big target of 600,000 heat pumps per year being installed. I think it's by 2028. We've done a lot of thinking about this, so one of the biggest things that I think needs to change is we don't have enough skilled people to actually install these heat pumps. So, I've anecdotally from colleagues heard that they're looking at getting a heat pump and they can't actually find somebody who's willing to install it in their house.
[00:26:58] – Jon Slowe
That's a huge barrier to turn interest, as you just described, to installation. If you can't find the person, that's not going to happen.
[00:27:05] – Daniel Logue
Especially if your boiler is on the brink. You want to replace your heating system; you're thinking about a heat pump, and you can't find somebody to do it. So, then you're replacing with a new boiler and then you're suddenly setting yourself back ten to 15 years until that wants replacing.
[00:27:20] – Jon Slowe
Yeah. The other angle I would say is I'm characterising or summarising your experience from that first heat pump to the proportion you're doing now and all the things you've learned on the way as to how you can find a way, how you deal with certain challenges. Even if we bring those skilled people in really quickly, Daniel, the learning curves of those people have to be really fast.
[00:27:43] – Daniel Logue
Yeah, exactly. And that's where I think we are in terms of people maybe picking the easier homes to do the heat pump installations on, and then that affects the public perception of my house is too difficult. Whereas actually, there might be a solution, it's just that the people doing the work either. Why wouldn't you choose an easier job if there's so many jobs out there?
[00:28:11] – Jon Slowe
They need to work a bit harder. Yeah. Do you believe that future of 600,000 heat pumps, ten times more installations than we have in the by 2030 than we have now?
[00:28:23] – Daniel Logue
I think there are movements in the right direction, but I don't think that we're going to get to that level with the current setup of how things are.
[00:28:33] – Jon Slowe
We're not on the right trajectory.
[00:28:35] – Daniel Logue
No. And I think that's mainly down to skills a bit on consumer propositions as well. So, if people can't afford the capital cost, how do we work that out? Which I think that's getting there more quickly.
[00:28:50] Jon Slowe
Okay. Thanks, Daniel. Let's stay in the UK and then go to Germany. So, Tessa.
[00:28:57] – Tessa Clark
I would agree really with what Dan said. To answer the second question first, I think yeah, I feel sceptical about hitting that 2028 target, but I certainly think that we will see massive growth in the next few years. I think quantity of the supply chain obviously needs to grow. But there's also, I guess, looking at the electrification of heat learnings, there's something around not only the quality of the designs, the quality of the installs, but the quality of the communication with the customer and that we've really got to get that communication piece right, in terms of really selling the benefits of heat pumps and how we can make that whole process easier for the customer so that initial interest can really be captured and we can make the rest of the process easier. The one other thing I would quickly say is, as well as the capital costs, it's also the running costs. We've got to convince people that the running costs are going to work for them. And the Electrification of Heat project started in 2020, which is a long time ago in energy price world. But over the next few years, I think people are going to be very sensitive to energy prices and the decisions they make. So, we need to make that case as well.
[00:30:09] – Jon Slowe
Yeah, it's a lot about communication and the running cost proposition.
[00:30:13] – Tessa Clark
Yeah, exactly.
[00:30:19] – Jon Slowe
Jens coming to you now in Germany. So, heat pumps twice the size, heat pump markets twice as big as they are in 2030. What would it take to get there?
[00:30:27] – Jens Dertenkötter
Absolutely will be like that, I think. I mean, the key thing for that is a change of law here, because we had programmes of people getting interested and stuff like that, and quite a bit of money spent on it, but people weren't really taking off. And that was due to the low cost of gas, of course, and the easiness of installing it. I agree to all the things I said before, and to make it happen, I think you'd have to sort of have a vision of how you want to have your house. And not even not 2030, but even beyond, maybe. I tell people, if you think about an old street today with old power lines and stuff, if everyone would just stick a heat pump on, it wouldn't work. You would have to sort of put a head on each of the houses to lower the amount of heat it needs. Once done that on the out shell, all your radiators and all your heating transmission units are too big or like, oversized, and all of a sudden, all those houses are suitable for heat pumps. And you put those heat pumps in and then we're talking about two and a half, three and a half kilowatts of consumption of energy, which is like what an oven used to have. So, the power lines all of a sudden can deal with the amount of energy going to that street. Because that's one of the big issues that people say you can't install all these heat plants because the power lines, our infrastructure is not big enough. I think all that if you're now technically into that future, to convince the people, you need to have a law and you need to have a vision of you can insulate your house, you can put a heat pump on. You could put PV panels on your house, you can have a battery storage, and you can be 85 to 90% independent of what everyone else is doing. And I think if you draw that picture, people say, yeah, that's how it has to be, because gas, oil, everything is going to come to an end.
[00:32:24] – Jon Slowe
You should be making policy in Germany.
[00:32:27] – Jens Dertenkötter
Yes, I'm trying,
[00:32:32] – Jon Slowe
But seriously, this was for a different episode, but there is regulation, looks like it's coming in Germany. That will make it virtually impossible to just install a gas boiler as a replacement for gas boiler. So, sounds like that law is on its way in.
[00:32:48] – Jens Dertenkötter
It's very controversial here. Some people hate it, some people love it. And one thing it definitely did is it put the heating into a focus of everyone, because it's been the talk of it's a big issue, big topic here and people start thinking about it, whereas before your boiler was tucked away, it's always been working. If it doesn't, you call someone who fixes it. But now everyone's thinking about the future of heating.
[00:33:16] – Jon Slowe
Yeah, well, let's end on that positive note. I think heating is coming into focus. Heat pumps are on the march. They're not the only low carbon or zero carbon heating solution, but they will surely play a major role, playing a big role in Germany at the moment and will grow and play a bigger role in the UK as well.
Jens, Daniel, Tessa, thanks so much for your time and contributions and sharing your experiences. Thanks to everyone listening. We hope you enjoyed the episode and learnt more about some of the nitty gritty issues around selling and installing heat pumps, converting interesting installations. Look forward to welcoming you back next week. Thanks, and goodbye.
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Talking New Energy
An LCP Delta podcast
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