At Futurebuild 2025, where we exhibited this year, we attended a compelling session on electrifying home heating in the UK, sponsored by Thermal Storage UK and chaired by Tom Lowe.
The discussion included rich insights from Chris Watling of OVO Energy and Ben Westerman from Public First – about consumer perceptions and challenges to the transition to low-carbon heating.
In this article, we will look at the main barriers that are preventing UK consumers from buying into the electrification of heat, and consider how compact heat batteries can help alleviate those barriers.
The UK’s electrification challenge and why heating matters
With the new government regulations such as Future Homes Standard (FHS) 2025 on the horizon and net zero targets fast approaching, the way we heat domestic buildings is going to change fundamentally.
As home heating accounts for 14% of the UK’s carbon emissions, swapping out gas from UK households to fit heat pump technology will be key for the UK government to achieve its climate pledge.
So while this presents specifiers, home developers and architects in the UK with new opportunities – such as shifting to modern, innovative alternative electric heating technologies – there are some pressing questions that need answering such as:
- How to make electrified heating more affordable and appealing to consumers, especially when gas is cheaper?
- How can they address challenges related to heat pump installation in all property types?
- How to integrate thermal storage solutions for hot water that work with low-carbon electric heating?
Barriers to buy-in: understanding consumer hesitation around heat electrification
23 million homes in the UK have a gas boiler to supply their central heating and hot water. It’s a familiar technology.
But consumers aren’t reluctant about the energy transition because they love gas boilers; it’s that they don’t necessarily see it as a priority; the more ‘front-of-mind’ concerns for the majority are cost of living and cutting energy bills. Financial impact drives decision making. There is also a lack of clarity about which technologies exist, and their efficacy in cutting energy bills in way that helps alleviate cost of living.
According to DESNZ’s Public Attitudes Tracker, we can see that 66% of people have little to no awareness about low-carbon heating technology. Another study conducted by The Conversation also showed that there is low awareness related to sustainable heating technologies (only 39% of participants knew about renewable heating systems), and even lower understanding that they can be quite as cheap to run as the fossil fuel gas boilers.
There’s also the need for greater awareness and trust around the government-backed grants and schemes for homeowners and housing developers available today. The lack of trust may be because the previous incentive, Green Homes Grant, had significantly underperformed in supporting this transition.
How can we reduce barriers to consumer buy-in for heat electrification?
1. Cost clarity
A clear communication and clarity around up front and running costs associated with switching to electrified heating and the new low-carbon technology, beyond the ‘carbon savings’ rhetoric, will go a long way in making people take to heat electrification.
For instance, with regards to the clarity around running costs, The Guardian in its detailed analysis reported that a heat pump with seasonal co-efficient of performance of 3.2 will cost the same as a 90% efficient A-rated gas boiler.
The case to consumers must also be made clear with financial support currently available & tangible cost benefits to gain from switching to clean heating & hot water.
Currently, homeowners in the UK can avail several grants for low-carbon heating such as:
- The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (£7,500 for heat pumps or biomass boilers in England and Wales)
- Green Heat Network Fund (for developing new & existing low-carbon heat networks)
- Warm Homes: Local Grant (up to £15,000 for energy upgrades in low-income English households)
- Energy Company Obligation (ECO4) (which are ‘energy supplier funded’ energy efficiency improvements across the UK, and include solar PV installation among other upgrades)
- Home Energy Scotland (interest-free loans and cashback for renewables in Scotland)
- Northern Ireland Sustainable Energy Programme (NISEP) (grants for heating upgrades in NI)
- Initiatives like the Great British Insulation Scheme and potential heat pump subscription models to make clean heating more accessible.
Also, DESNZ mentioned that heat pumps will be increasingly cheaper and easier to install.
The previous government’s boost to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) grant amount has had a positive response – last week, BBC reported that the increase in the grant amount led to a record-level rise (52%) in low-carbon heating system installs compared to 2023.
To further amplify this, the UK government recently launched the #WarmAndFuzzy campaign with the aim of raising awareness about heat pump running costs (annual bill savings of £100 when paired with the tariff) and the BUS grant available to help with upfront installation costs.
2. Policy cost rebalancing – making electricity cheaper to run
A Cornwall Insight & MCS Foundation report spoke about the crucial role of policy cost rebalancing, ie shifting government levies away from electricity costs and onto gas, in increasing the adoption of low-carbon technologies. A major reason gas heating remains cheaper to run is that currently levies designed to fund renewable energy projects (also known as green levies) are added to electricity bills, not gas.
Currently, homes powered by electric heating, most of which are low-income households and renters, are paying up to £450 more per year than gas users. By rebalancing these costs, policymakers could make running a heat pump significantly cheaper than a gas boiler and make it easier for lower-income households to adopt the new technology. A coalition of 35 organisations, including energy suppliers and consumer advocates have written to Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, to deliver an urgent reforms of outdated levies on electricity.
What are some challenges with heat pump technology?
1. The biggest obstacle – hot water storage
Heat pumps are harder to install in terraced properties and high-rise apartments because they need additional space for hot water storage. And traditional hot water tanks are impractical for a majority of UK homes currently using combi boilers.
This is where Sunamp heat batteries can be a game-changer:
“Sunamp’s super compact Thermino heat batteries can unlock heat pump installation in different property types.
These compact heat batteries don’t store hot water but instead contain an energy-dense phase change material, providing on-demand mains pressure hot water in a unit that’s up to 4x smaller. Our heat batteries are lined with vacuum insulation panels, which lead to ultra-low heat losses—up to 2-4x lower than a hot water cylinder—and more energy savings.”
– Catalina Dobas, Product owner at Sunamp
Also, by using off-peak tariffs designed for heat pumps, like Cosy Octopus, Heat Pump Plus and Heat Pump Saver, users can further cut back on costs – these tariffs allow households to shift about 18% of their overall household energy consumption (average for hot water) to times when electricity is much cheaper, substantially contributing to balancing the grid load as well.
Homeowners can also use the BUS grant towards the cost of purchasing Thermino heat batteries with heat pumps. And these batteries are compatible with most widely adopted heat pumps across UK and Europe.
Additionally, unlike unvented cylinders, PCM batteries don’t require G3 certification, which makes them quicker, easier and cheaper to install for your installers.
A strong takeaway from the Futurebuild talk was that compact thermal storage solutions like Sunamp’s heat batteries are a game-changer for housing developers, specifiers and social housing landlords who need space-saving, efficient hot water storage to enable heat pump installations in their retrofit projects as well as in designing new sustainable buildings.
2. Where installing a ground or air source heat pump isn’t feasible
In space-constrained homes where heat pumps aren’t feasible at all, compact heat batteries offer an efficient alternative for electric space heating and hot water.
Thermino heat batteries, together with tepeo’s Zero Emission Boiler (ZEB), offer a flexible, gas-free affordable hot water & heating solution – storing electricity from smart tariffs during cheaper, greener periods.
This strategic partnership offers a compact, combi-like heating + hot water solution while making electrified heating possible without complex and bulky installations.
To enhance the access for homeowners across UK, we met with Energy Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh MP recently to discuss and advocate for BUS grants and VAT relief on heat battery solutions under Warm Homes plan.
With cost clarity, policy shifts and thermal storage technologies, we can make low-carbon heating practical for all homes. The focus must be on raising awareness, expanding incentives and driving adoption to make sure that clean heat becomes the easy choice.
