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Showing posts from May, 2021

Heat Pump Metrics

The UK Government’s Green Homes Grant scheme (GOV.UK, 2020) may have had some success in that it motivated some home owners to think about how they would make energy improvements to their homes if they could find a suitable contractor and received a grant.   One of the measures included in the scheme was the installation of a heat pump, of either the ground or air source type. Within the scheme these devices were classified as low carbon heat measures, and were subject to additional requirements. One was that a “minimum level of insulation is recommended to ensure the proper design and operation of the relevant technology in line with relevant standards” and another that all “heat pump systems must have a minimum Seasonal Performance Factor (SPF) of 2.5.” Ofgem (2021) defines the SPF as “a measure of the operating performance of an electric heat pump heating system over a year. It is the ratio of the heat delivered to the total electrical energy supplied over the year.” Ofgem explain