Heat Pumps Will Work Just Fine In Scotland - In Summer
Paul Homewood has called it a Gerald Ratner moment!
A major heat pump supplier has attacked SNP-Green plans to use them to replace gas boilers in Scotland, warning parts of the country are too cold for them to work.
Lord Willie Haughey, the business tycoon, said the heating system is unsuitable for the Scottish climate as its performance declines markedly in freezing weather.
The Labour peer said some units can stop working properly at temperatures of -5C (23F), or require more electricity to function properly, resulting in higher bills.
The Scottish government plans to make it hard to sell your home if you’ve got an efficient gas boiler fitted, as opposed to an inefficient, noisy, ugly air source heat pump:
His intervention came after Patrick Harvie, a Scottish Green minister, last week unveiled plans for homes to receive lower environmental ratings if they are heated using gas boilers.
From 2025, homes will need to achieve an EPC rating of C or above at certain trigger points, including a sale, meaning some properties with boilers will be barred from being put on the market.
Lord Haughey, who made his millions through a global refrigeration business, said:”I have a heat pump company and following Patrick Harvie’s announcement, I should really be jumping for joy.
“But the truth of the matter is that heat pumps don’t work as efficiently in Scotland as they do in other countries.”
He said this was because of the colder climate and warned “legionnaires’ disease can thrive in lower temperatures in hot water systems”.
Lord Haughey added: “My staff are always telling me I should not criticise our core business but this is eco nonsense being peddled by the Greens. I’d like to challenge Patrick Harvie to a debate on the science of it.”
The tycoon also said the heat pumps are so noisy, that if eight or ten neighbouring homes had one, the resulting sound would “rattle your windows”.
He described them as “ugly and cumbersome” and said they created a bigger scar on a home than a satellite dish.
The thing is though, air source heat pumps will work just fine to keep you warm in the Scottish summer. Here’s today’s forecast from the Met Office:
Perhaps not such a Gerald Ratner moment after all!
Addendum
For those interested in how the coefficient of performance of an air source to water heat pump varies with outside temperature, here is a very useful graph:
I've got an awesome Mitsubishi Mr. Slim A/C-heat pump and three wall units in my house. We use it primarily for cooling as July and August are absolutely terrible months here. Works great.
For heat however, they also work 'ok' to take the chill off nights around 45-50 degrees and they also cost a small fortune to run. We use a woodstove as primary heat with a oil fired boiler/baseboard heat for real winter.
Heat pumps absolutely do not function below freezing... at ... all.
British Gas agrees with heat pump supplier Lord Haughey, saying they will only agree to install a heat pump if convinced that it will succeed in getting the property up to a target temperature on the coldest days: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/12/the-heat-pump-farce-has-finally-been-exposed/.
The SNP/Greens should have learned from Sturgeon’s experience in converting her official residence Bute House to heat pumps, at a cost of £800k: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1542230/nicola-sturgeon-scotland-bute-house-electric-heaters-800k-ont.
The German Greens are reported to have spent 5 million Euros converting their HQ to heat pumps: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/06/14/german-green-party-headquarters-heat-pump-debacle-5-million-euros-cost-still-no-heat/.
The UK government has set a ludicrous target of installing heat pumps in 600,000 homes per year but so far has achieved a trickle, only 9,000 over a recent 3-month period according to Ross Clark despite the £5k bung, due to expire in 2025. Suppliers may go on strike for fear of being fined for not meeting government quotas: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/05/the-tories-are-staking-our-future-on-technology-we-know-won/.
A report published in May shows the installations per 1,000 households across regions of the UK. Surprisingly, Scottish islands top the list, e.g. 120 in Orkney. In contrast, most areas are much, much lower, e.g. 3 in St Albans, 0.3 in Wolverhampton: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/20/head-pump-noise-disturbance-complaints/.
The UK’s roll-out of heat pumps is the lowest in Europe: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/13/flagship-heat-pump-scheme-flops-installations-target/.
Control freak Patrick Harvie will have to eat crow and back down on his authoritarian plans as most people want nothing to do with noisy, expensive heat pumps which for many homes simply aren’t up to the job.