ImpactAlpha, May 17 — The UK government wants to install 600,000 heat pumps each year as a low-carbon alternative to gas boilers. Ground-source, or geothermal, heat pumps use electricity to absorb natural heat from the ground or water and transfer it into buildings.
London-based investment manager Legal & General Capital and Octopus Energy Generation made a $87.4 million investment in UK-based Kensa to manufacture and install 50,000 ground-source heat pumps yearly by 2030, focused on social and terraced housing and non-domestic buildings.
Heat pumps are “a tried and tested replacement for gas boilers and can drive down consumers’ energy bills for good,” said Octopus Energy’s Zoisa North-Bond. The UK is mulling a nationwide ban on gas boilers.
The investment will also allow housing developers to tap Kensa’s ambient temperature heat network, which distributes heat to numerous properties from a centralized system. The “approach reduces the strain on our electricity grid and enables a just transition — keeping heating costs low and addressing fuel poverty simultaneously with climate change mitigation,” said Kensa’s Matthew Trewhella.