By 2028 the government is hoping to see installations of heat pumps reach a whopping 600,000 every year. The figure in the whole of 2021 was around 60,000. The scale of the challenge is therefore obvious, with increasing penetration of heat pumps in the energy mix needed in increasingly difficult circumstances.

Let’s assume for a moment that this target is appropriate. The next question is – where should we begin? We need to identify those properties quickly, identifying the most appropriate trajectory to reaching those numbers, and target investment effectively.

A good starting assumption may be to focus on those houses (rather than flats) that aren’t on the gas network – for practical and technical reasons, as well as the running cost arguments for doing so.

On this basis, and using the C-Path Platform, which includes data for every household in England and Wales, we have identified the potential opportunity for air source heat-pump installations where the property is currently heated by oil, LPG, solid fuel or electricity. The C-Path platform is a cloud-based tool that combines mapping and data to allow a user to assess the scope of opportunity for domestic retrofit within an area. C-Path analyses a property's suitability for a host of retrofit measures assessing them based on individual characteristics, tailoring costs, energy saving, and carbon reduction impacts accordingly.

Published in a zoomable, mapped format, this tool identifies the relative opportunity for installing air source heat pumps, illustrating the potential number, investment cost and lifetime carbon emission savings of air source heat-pump installations per local authority.

Adding the data together across each mapped authority, approximately 1.83 million properties with these heating system characteristics are identified as suitable for air source heat-pump installation. These installations would cost a total of £19.3 billion, providing a colossal 90 billion tCO₂ saving over a thirty-year period.

We’d be interested in your feedback and thoughts or if you want to learn more about the data, so please contact us at info@thermly.co.uk.

If you are a local authority, investor, or housing association anywhere in England and Wales and are keen to understand the domestic retrofit implications and opportunities associated with your housing stock, C-Path can help – just contact us on info@thermly.co.uk, or follow the link below to our contact form.