Guess it depends on the quality of the assessment, the design & sizing of the systems and the comprehensiveness of the hand over to the end customers…. You are probably right!

Didn't somone post recently about an experience someone had with their install..? 

I wouldnt be touching them with a bargepole based on that experience!!

Posted by: @editor

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British Gas kicks off price war for heat pumps

Hmm. I’m not sure this is a good idea!

Maybe the government target of 600,000 installations per year is also not such a good idea - thinking how variable the quality of commissioning and hand over will be. The industry appears to be in disarray  even now with claims of high pricing cancelling out the incentive of the grant.

Price is key to getting uptake.

quality training and handover also.

How else are we to get to net zero…?

A price war for heat pumps - what could possibly go wrong? Unleash the power of the market - what could possibly go wrong?

We all know the answer - an awful lot can go wrong. At present, we have suppliers and installers over-paying themselves on the backs of government grants. That for a start seriously distorts the market. Then, even after paying themselves handsomely, the average standard of installation is a long way from perfect. Add in a price war - meaning rushed and bodged installation with corners cut, as the warring installers pare their costs down to the bone - and things can only get worse. Tuning a weather curve? Forget it, just leave the system running on a constant high temp flow temp. Plastic pipework? Of course! Cheaper and easier to install. Upgrade the rads to the necessary size? No way - far too expensive, haven't you noticed there is a price war on, dear boy, can't afford to do the necessary extras. And so on. 

Meanwhile, the MSM seem pretty much oblivious to the fact that the discrepancy between the target annual number of heat pump installations (600,000) and actual number (40,000) is eye-watering. The government/industry are more than 90% below their target. The Telegraph article only mentions it in passing way below the fold, but in reality that is the headline - "Government misses target by a staggering 93%". But wait a moment, the cavalry have arrived, in the form of British Gas! What could possibly go wrong!  

Quite a bit of coverage over on LinkedIn about this one. And so the race to the bottom begins. Price driven installs seldom hit the required quality and efficiency mark. Sure all the relevant boxes for the Government, MCS, etc., will be ticked, but short cuts could leave homeowners with poorly designed and installed ASHPs costing far too much to run.

There is currently no mandatory accreditation for persons designing or installing ASHPs (?) As the industry is expected to grow exponentially over the next 5 years, this must in place to safeguard homeowners and deter the cowboys wanting to get a piece of the action. Legal enforcement needs to back it up.

Give them a chance.  I think some of the specialist ASHP installers are terrified the likes of Octopus and BG will undercut them.  Race to the bottom?  I don't know but we definitely need some competition and more realistic prices.  And despite the number of experts talking up how hard all of this is (they would, wouldn't they), for most houses, it actually isn't. 

Of course BG might make a pig's ear of it (and some almost seem to be wishing they will) but without big corporates like them and Octopus, large scale ASHP roll out isn't going to happen.  

Posted by: @sunandair

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How else are we to get to net zero…?

We need to go beyond net zero. We need to minimise too. Buying ever more offsets to hit a questionable paper target isn't a great idea.

Posted by: @allyfish

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Quite a bit of coverage over on LinkedIn about this one. And so the race to the bottom begins. Price driven installs seldom hit the required quality and efficiency mark. Sure all the relevant boxes for the Government, MCS, etc., will be ticked, but short cuts could leave homeowners with poorly designed and installed ASHPs costing far too much to run.

Can it really get much worse than the current "manure exhibition"? Every private install is already price-driven because saving on the installation means more jobs signed up and/or more profits for the installing company's owners. The few customer-owned installers don't have the capacity to do much more.

Posted by: @allyfish

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There is currently no mandatory accreditation for persons designing or installing ASHPs (?)

There's mandatory accreditation for the people preparing the Energy Performance Certificates needed to access various grants and they're full of errors, some required by the EPC process. It's a total market for lemons that needs reform, but this development might even help that because BG are even less likely to want to be left carrying the can for rubbish installations than Octopus! We may now have 2 big energy companies pushing for market reform.

Posted by: @kev-m

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Of course BG might make a pig's ear of it (and some almost seem to be wishing they will) but without big corporates like them and Octopus, large scale ASHP roll out isn't going to happen. 

Not wishing they will, just expecting they will, given the effect of the price war added onto the already generally rather too common poor standard of installation.

I still don't know what the right approach is to all this. It should be easy, but it's not, not in the slightest. The first, and probably biggest installation block is price. ASHPs are very expensive. Why would Joe Bloggs with a working gas boiler blow several ££££ on something he doesn't need? I have many friends in this situation - it just doesn't make financial success to them. Add in the it's a new technology, not yet ready for prime time perception (they may even have a point, look at the recent posts here on the forum on GSHPs turning out to be new tech that wasn't quite ready), and it doesn't just not make financial sense, it doesn't make any sense at all. Cue grants as the solution, in effect bribe people to take on heat pump. This does work, but only partially, because the obstacles are off-putting, but more to the point it distorts the market badly, very badly. The net effect is the buyers volunteer to spend more, and the sellers don't look a gift horse in the mouth (sorry, bit of a mixed metaphor there), and charge more. The tax payer and the homeowner lose out, and the installers and suppliers coin it in. That then makes the industry a cowboy magnet. Then add in a price war, which means, no escaping it, a race to the bottom. And all of this on a back drop of missing installation targets by that staggering 93%.

Posted by: @cathoderay

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Why would Joe Bloggs with a working gas boiler blow several ££££ on something he doesn't need?

Why is that the target market yet? I think there are plenty of people who have fossil boilers on their last legs and are facing ASHP-like costs to install a replacement (due to improved regulations, or simply the old boiler being a type or shape no longer available at a reasonable price). Switch them first to get the market working.

Posted by: @cathoderay

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Add in the it's a new technology, not yet ready for prime time perception (they may even have a point, look at the recent posts here on the forum

Remember that very few people who are happy with their heat pump's operation will be posting on here, so perception may not match reality. I really hope that someone is researching the RHI installations to learn some lessons about what does and doesn't work.

Thinking about it, how to get people to install heat pumps, the answer is probably not to bribe people to install heat pumps, but to make people want to install heat pumps. A magnificent advertising campaign, the lifestyle wonderful, make ASHPs sexy, that sort of thing. The Chinese already know how to do this sort of thing. “Model individuals will be commended in accordance with regulations, and extensive publicity will be conducted through the news media to create a trustworthy and glorious public opinion atmosphere.” (State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2014). What could possibly go wrong?