New Study Shows Heat Pumps To Be Four Times More Efficient Than Most Gas Boilers

Green Energy Company, Good Energy, has revealed that its air source heat pumps (ASHP) are surpassing industry standards and delivering a level of efficiency that is more than four times higher than a typical gas combi-boiler system. 
Heat pumps in general are very efficient but Good Energy has shown in their analysis of new real-world data that their heat pumps outperform heat pumps tested in a recent government funded study. 

This means that customers can save money on their energy bills, despite electricity being considerably more expensive per unit than gas. Due to the way that policy costs are charged on energy bills, you can still save money with a heat pump versus a gas boiler. You can save about £150 per year using a heat pump based on a typical household consumption of energy at 11,500kWh of heat, on the current price cap or more if you’re on the Standard Variable Tariff with Good Energy.

Good Energy has said that heat pumps are even more efficient when part of a ‘whole home’ installation. According to the latest figures the average efficiency achieved by heat pumps installed by Good Energy in customers' homes reached 340 per cent over the last year, meaning for every unit of energy going into the heat pump, 3.4 units are generated as heat output. This figure includes all heating and hot water at a system level that compares with a combi boiler and also reflects real world seasonal changes in use and weather. 

Good Energy’s heat pumps are 4.1 times more efficient than a typical gas boiler, which average 82% efficiency based on a 2009 government analysis of gas boilers, and 3.7 times more efficient than the 92% figure most efficient modern A-rated boilers are advertised as being able to achieve. Good Energy’s data came from heat pumps that have been installed for a full year, which provided 12 months of data across all seasons. According to British Gas modern gas boilers are at least 90% efficient, but older models can be as low as 60%.

Despite the fact that the use of gas boilers is widespread there is very little research on real world boiler efficiency. There is far more up-to-date research on real world heat pump efficiency.
The CEO of Good Energy, Nick Pocklington, said that the firm’s latest data confirms the belief that heat pumps can beat a gas boiler's efficiency "hands down" in all kinds of property.

Nick Pocklington said: 

"Thanks to this efficiency, despite the unfavourable pricing of electricity compared to gas, largely due to policy costs rather than real world prices, customers can still cut their running costs as well as their carbon with a heat pump.  Imagine the savings customers will make when cheap renewable power becomes abundant and electricity prices fall, or if energy bills are rebalanced so electricity is not unfairly burdened with policy costs. Gas will no longer stand a chance."

The results of Good Energy’s study will also further expedite the call for the government to adopt long-standing proposals for energy market reforms that would ensure electricity prices are no longer set by the price of fossil gas.
Energy industry insiders and environmental campaigners have put forward a persuasive case for the government to move green levies on energy bills from electricity to gas and to push through wider reforms to allow households and businesses to better take advantage of lower cost renewables, so that heat pumps would quickly become more competitive than gas boilers. Good Energy offer a remote monitoring service to customers for every heat pump installation so that they can spot any issues quickly and, in most cases, solve them without even visiting the property. 

The system records the energy going in and out each minute, as well as system temperatures. The company also offers customers the opportunity to participate in a research project they are conducting with the University of Southampton which monitors the temperature inside their homes. 

Remote monitoring has meant that Good Energy were able to analyse the performance of 82 Midea heat pumps they had installed. 15 of these heat pumps had a full 12 months of data covering all seasons. This is important as air source heat pump performance will vary depending on outside air temperature. 

All these heat pumps are located in real homes, including detached, semi-detached, and terraced houses which range from 10 up to 100 years in age. The heat pumps are used day to day as a sole source of heating and not as part of a hybrid system.

The performance data gathered from these heat pumps exceeded figures from a recent government funded heat pump performance analysis by the highly authoritative Energy Systems Catapult, earlier in 2023, which revealed in an interim report that the 291 heat pumps in its trial were delivering an equivalent efficiency of 290% on average across all seasons. This is still three times better than a gas boiler though Good Energy’s results are even better.
Good Energy’s findings like the Energy Systems Catapult study, concluded that heat pumps were technically feasible in all types of properties across the UK.
Good Energy are also able to look at the data at different system levels. It’s important to look at more than just the heat pump performance in isolation as it won’t matter much if your heat pump is very efficient if you are losing all the energy between the heat pump and the hot tank. 

The standard system levels are – 

• Level 1 – Just the refrigeration cycle within the heat pump
• Level 2 – The whole heat pump unit but nothing else in the system
• Level 3 – The heat pump and the immersion heater (which is inside the hot water cylinder)
• Level 4 – All of the above, plus the energy consumption of the circulation pump which sends hot water around the home

The system level most comparable to a typical gas combi-boiler is level 3, including the heat pump and the immersion heater. At this level the average performance of Good Energy’s heat pumps with over 12 months of data was 340% which means the energy output was 3.4 times the amount going in. 

This is known as a Seasonal Coefficient of Performance’ or ‘SCOP’, meaning an average performance across all seasons. This is how Good Energy has calculated its heat pump installations are more than four times as efficient than a typical gas boiler. 
Heat pumps are not gas boilers. They are much more efficient but there is more to take into consideration when installing them than with gas boilers. It is vital that heat pump installers take a ‘whole home’ approach to installation. Heat pump installers need to conduct a full survey of a home before they begin, in order for the heating designers to create a bespoke proposal including any changes to hot water cylinders and radiators. Remote monitoring of heat pump systems makes sure that customers get the best from their heat pumps.

Good Energy’s recent study shows that installing a heat pump will cut your carbon footprint as well as your energy bills.
The study also comes at a time when concern is growing over the government’s ability to hit a target of 600,000 new heat pump installations every year from 2028, given just 60,000 units were installed in the UK last year which makes it one of Europe’s slower adopters of the technology.