Heat Pump Ready Programme - Stream 2 Wave 2 projects

1st May 2024

The Heat Pump Ready Programme Stream 2 Wave 2 competition supports applied research and development projects, focused on driving down the lifetime costs of domestic heat pump deployment. The aims are to improve the domestic consumer experience and acceptability of heat pumps through technology, tools, business model and process innovation.

It aims to develop solutions that:

improve the ease of heat pump deployment in homes that are ‘complex to decarbonise' by addressing physical, material, locational, technological, regulatory, or social challenges
develop innovative solutions to enable heat pumps to be deployed in ‘distress purchase' situations when a new home heating system is required urgently.

improve performance and/or reduce costs of domestic heat pumps with low-GWP refrigerants (below 150 GWP), while ensuring safety
reduce the lifetime costs or improve the overall lifetime performance of domestic heat pumps or improve the domestic consumer experience of using and living with a heat pump.

HomelyLifetime
Lead partner: Evergreen Energy Ltd
Grant total: £465,991.12

Project summary
The largest survey of UK domestic heat pump owners (Nesta, 2023) found that 10% to 15% of customers are unsatisfied with their installation experience. This represents a major barrier to new technology adoption. Dissatisfied customers are vocal about their experience, driving a negative feedback loop that slows uptake. This is exacerbated by use of smart software that is able to modulate operation in response to external data, such as energy prices, network triggers, or temperature sensors. Such software is a vital part of reducing lifetime costs of the heat pump. If users do not understand the scheduling reasons, it leads them to manually change settings, which adds cost and potentially creates system faults. Our installer research found that they average 2+ callouts per customer per year based on user error, costing £1000/customer in wasted visits.

Our HomelyLifetime solution data enables a step change in proactive diagnosis, insights and communication of issues to installers and end users. The data enables entirely new business models centred around ‘smart’ service and support of heat pumps, to consistently ensure customers, installers, and service agents have access to up-to-date information about the performance of the heat pumps, and timely notification about developing issues. Mostly this will reassure homeowners that systems are behaving well, reducing the incentive to tinker. When issues do occur-both acute issues and long-term impacting such as frequent short-cycling-the platform will give the same information to all parties allowing for efficient resolution.

Thermly Distress Diagnostics
Lead partner: Thermly Limited
Partners: Lendology CIC
Grant total: £518,362.73

Project summary
To materially impact the incidence of purchases of heating systems (and increase the incidence of those households transitioning to a heat pump rather than defaulting to a fossil fuel boiler), you need the ability to predict with reasonable accuracy the likelihood of where and when they will happen in advance.

No-one does this currently, so our proposal is to develop the intelligence and accessible software with this capability down to individual household level in the UK.

This project will give us the capability to eliminate such ‘distress purchases’ of heating systems for those wishing to transition to heat pumps. Our proposed research project will lead to the creation of web-enabled software that provides:

Pre-identified (‘near distress’) households with a tailored solution based on our new analytic capability and then certainty in their route to a heat pump (building on our existing online customer journey platform capabilities within Thermly supported under Wave 1).

A means for households already in distress purchase situations to transition to heat pumps. Our research seeks to build a functional, viable business model for temporary heating which buys householders time whilst they switch to heat pumps.

Property level intelligence and diagnostics to those involved in the housing and energy sectors giving them the ability to target resources and deliver the transition to sustainable heat more effectively.

Nusku Fully UK Designed and Manufactured Heat Pump for Distressed Purchases Accelerator
Lead partner: Nusku Ltd
Partners: University of Salford
Grant total: £727,480.04

Project summary
The Nusku project aim is to create an innovative heat pump solution which is designed specifically for easy replacement of gas boilers in a cost-effective way, without the need for major internal home rework which most existing heat pump solutions require.

The unique approach encompasses all the required heat pump functionality into a sleek, outdoor unit as an all-in-one replacement for a gas boiler, ideal for the distress purchase market.

The project will move the solution from TRL5 through to TRL7/8, furthering the technology to a pre-production level solution which will be tested in the Salford Energy House to provide an independent assessment of performance.

The Flexible Heat Pump
Lead partner: Clear Blue Energy Ltd
Partners: Source Thermal Limited, University of Liverpool, Pragmatic Energy Limited Grant total: £773,156.36

Project summary
The Flexible Heat Pump is a breakthrough innovation in the design and performance of vapour compression heat pumps. An invention of the project’s academic partner, the Flexible Heat Pump cycle introduces a heat storage device into the Evans-Perkins cycle to recover, store, and reuse part of the sensible heat carried by the hot liquid refrigerant from the condenser, achieving a higher cycle efficiency. It outperforms the conventional heat pumps, delivering:

increased Seasonal Coefficient of Performance (SCoP) by up to 20%
more efficient/rapid defrosting of the evaporator without interrupting the ongoing supply of heat to the building
the ability to integrate multiple heat sources, for example, recovery of ‘waste’, solar thermal or geothermal heat into an air source heat pump
Hence, the Flexible Heat Pump can deliver significantly lower running costs than conventional heat pumps. This addresses a key barriers to mass market adoption of heat pumps – the total cost of ownership (TCO) currently being higher than the incumbent solution, fossil-fuelled boilers.

The Flexible Heat Pump has 2 key innovations which unlock these enhancements of the conventional heat pump cycle:

A compact thermal store integral to the vapour compression cycle, enabling the recovery of heat normally wasted to improve CoP, more efficient defrost cycles and secondary sources of heat input to be easily integrated
A multi-way valve enabling the operating mode to be changed between heat store charging and discharging
The core technology was developed by The University of Glasgow and is protected by several international patents. Proof-of-concept prototypes have been built, demonstrating functionality, performance and control strategy.

In this project, our consortium will:

design a production intent version of the Flexible Heat Pump using low GWP R290 refrigerant and meeting the requirements for our selected market segment(s)
build 3 off Design Verification prototypes
conduct accelerated laboratory testing of the function, performance and durability of the appliance
undertake certification and accreditation of the appliance
secure 3 pilot sites for subsequent field demonstration of the Flexible Heat Pump
Following this project, we will be ready to commercialise the first Flexible Heat Pump variants in the UK and other key export markets.

Pricing Engine for Heat Pump Subscriptionseat
Lead partner: Fornax
Grant total: £293,830

Project summary
Fornax aims to combine best-in-class technology with an innovative consumer proposition to fundamentally transform homeowner journeys to getting a heat pump. The core project tenet is that to accelerate consumer adoption of domestic heat pumps, a turnkey solution is needed that makes the installation process simpler, lifetime system quality robust and increases affordability. By addressing technological, regulatory, and social challenges, we will improve the experience of obtaining, using and living with a heat pump, reduce lifetime costs and improve lifetime performance.

Our project centres around the financial hurdles that exist for many in adopting heat pumps; we’ve pioneered a novel subscription-based model that directly tackles the high initial costs of installations, broadening accessibility while enhancing the quality of equipment installed and supporting skilled labour. Our subscription covers design and planning, installation, regular servicing and maintenance, ensuring homeowners get a robust, working system over its full life for - most importantly - a predictable monthly payment.

To fully achieve these aims, we will combine several technical innovations:

Building a novel data-model combining open-source EPC data, consumer credit data and proprietary data to accurately identify which households are most ready to make the transition to a heat pump. This provides the ability to precisely target areas with ‘most likely’ adopters, maximising efficiency in marketing, design and installation
Deploying data-collection hardware to heat pump units in our pilot scheme so we can optimise system configuration and understand how long-term ownership costs are impacted by installer expertise, property types, homeowner characteristics, preferences and behaviours.
Building a proprietary system to optimise cost across the entire product lifecycle by improving the design, installation and maintenance. Bringing coordinated, robust management to a currently disparate, disorganised install and ownership process should reduce costs and increase confidence and comfort for consumers.
Combining all the above in a proprietary data model for a precise and robust understanding of the interrelationship between every factor in the consumer journey and product lifecycle, and how they relate to long-term cost and risk.
These innovations will enable us to price consumer subscriptions accurately, unlocking a sustainable, scalable financing model supported by institutional capital and enabling a unique business model that tackles both the financial and operational barriers to heat pump deployment. By reducing friction along the entire consumer journey and solving the key issue of affordability with a long-term financing solution, this project stands to significantly accelerate the rate of heat pump deployment by 2028.

Smart Temperature Automation Technology (STAT)
Lead partner: Passiv
Grant total: £989,691.00

Project summary
Passiv has invested in developing new heat-pump controls, to be launched in 2024, to address installer and consumer related issues by providing installation and commissioning tools and enhancing the consumer experience through user-friendly hardware and software interfaces that leverage the familiarity and ease of use of traditional thermostats. The Passiv Smart Thermostat (PST) addresses the need for improved efficiency in heat pumps and helps consumers transition to low-carbon heating. It provides ongoing, future-proofed control capabilities including intelligent weather compensation that delivers an EST validated COP improvement of 17%.

This project extends the functionality of the PST and enhances the consumer experience based on user feedback from project trials. It will develop a unique hardware prototype that offers standalone connectivity and integration with the smart meter infrastructure, thereby ensuring that all customer groups can benefit from energy flexibility services. In doing so, consumers will benefit from heat pumps that automatically optimise against their electricity tariff and provide a fully automated response to demand flexibility opportunities without the need for consumer intervention or any loss of consumer comfort. PST will reduce the lifetime costs and improve the overall lifetime heat pump performance.

These benefits will be available to consumers for the price of a standard connected thermostat product with no service fee. This unique new product will be the first to provide a solution that minimises consumer costs through heat-pump efficiency improvement, tariff optimisation and DSR services. Importantly these benefits will not be constrained to the able-to-pay market, any household can benefit without needing a broadband connection or other technology interface. The consumer experience aims to be best in market, whether through the in-home hardware interfaces, or a mobile app.

Natural Refrigerant based Heat Pump (NATURAL HEAT)
Lead partner: FeTu
Grant total: £465,763.11

Project summary
FeTu’s innovative technology readiness level 7 compressor is at the heart of its novel heat pump and system, demonstrating breakthrough volumetric and thermal efficiencies. It is lightweight, can run at slow speeds, uses less energy, and therefore has a reduced power demand, epitomising energy efficiency. FeTu’s heat pump utilises low global warming potential (GWP) and zero ozone depletion potential (ODP) working fluids. Modelling various use cases delivers a standout performance that, when replicated during the test, will transform the potential of heat pumps, instigating wider uptake initially in the UK and then abroad.

Project objective
Developing FeTu’s heat/cool system from TRL 5 to TRL7, utilising FeTu’s novel compressor, undertaking design, manufacture, assembly, and testing activities.

Areas of focus:

value engineering and Design for Manufacturing (component and system level)
evaluation of futureproof working fluids (GWP