09 July 2024
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‘Selling’ the concept of low carbon heating to the public is a challenge that could be made easier if the industry made more of the wider benefits of heat pump technology including its potential to improve air quality and reduce overheating, says BESA technical director Graeme Fox.
Heat pumps are gaining traction with homeowners and operators of commercial buildings because of their low carbon and energy efficiency credentials, but the current pace of the retrofit market remains frustratingly slow.
The built environment is the largest source of climate emissions apart from transport and we have around 28 million homes most of which will need some level of retrofit to meet our climate change targets.
UK built environment emissions did fall by 13% between 2018 and 2022, but that is six percentage points less than the 19% required to meet the UK’s net zero commitments, according to a new report from the UK Green Building Council.
We are on the right track, but not moving fast enough, and will need to decarbonise the built environment twice as fast in coming years to hit the government’s 2050 legally binding commitment.
Our social housing sector is a big target for improvements which is proving hard to transform at scale. The poor condition of many of these homes calls for a much wider ambition beyond cutting emissions and energy bills – namely to make them fit for human habitation.
Overheating
The building engineering sector has a responsibility for keeping people warm in the winter – but we also work on improving indoor air quality (IAQ) and reducing summer overheating, which is an increasingly important consideration as the planet heats up.
Heat pumps are not a silver bullet, but they do tick all these boxes.
Unlike traditional heating systems that burn fossil fuels they produce no direct emissions at the point of use. So, as well as improving energy efficiency they reduce our dependence on the fuels that directly contribute to air pollution through harmful emissions.
Fossil fuel powered heating systems also emit harmful particulate matter (PM) which contributes to serious respiratory problems and cardiovascular diseases when breathed in. Heat pumps are combustion free, so do not produce any PM emissions and, therefore, directly support better healthcare outcomes.
The transition to heat pumps is also part of a wider economic trend to invest in a cleaner energy infrastructure in line with the industry’s wider goals to create a safer and healthier environment for all which includes tackling the growing problem of overheating.
The UK building stock is not well equipped to cope with our increasingly hot summers and milder winters. Heat pumps don’t just heat, they can also provide cooling in the summer so could be a big part of the solution. This is a message that is often lost in the debate about transitioning from gas boilers, which tends to focus solely on the environmental aspects.
A report produced by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), which advises the UK government, recently warned that the country was poorly prepared to deal with the “silent killer” of overheating with vulnerable groups, including the elderly and the socially disadvantaged, at greatest risk.
Heat resilience and sustainable cooling said that both physical and mental health are affected by rising temperatures with suicide risk believed to be twice as high when the temperature reaches 32°C compared with 22°C.
The committee of MPs also said high temperatures cost the UK economy £60bn a year due to work-related accidents and lack of sleep. It said more than 4.6 million homes in England experience summertime overheating – underlining the huge scale of the potential retrofit challenge.
This puts a whole new complexion on the debate between retrofit and rebuild on the road to net zero. With the need to retrofit both residential and commercial buildings to improve energy efficiency already established as part of the UK’s net zero ambitions, addressing overheating needs to be given greater prominence.
Reverse cycle heat pumps can switch from extracting heat from the outdoor air and transferring it indoors during the winter months, to removing heat from the indoor air and transferring it outside, effectively cooling the indoor space during the summer.
Ventilation
Deploying technology in this way complements the ventilation industry’s efforts to improve the wider performance of buildings to safeguard human health and well-being. This includes keeping systems operating well throughout their operating life to find the right balance between energy consumption, effective ventilation, and cooling.
To that end, BESA recently introduced a new specification for ventilation hygiene which has been widely hailed as “a big step towards revolutionising air quality in buildings” and which also has important implications for energy saving.
TR19® Air ‘Specification for internal cleanliness and hygiene management of ventilation systems’ was designed to address an urgent need for better cleaning and maintenance of ventilation ducting, which has been highlighted by healthcare professionals as crucial to reducing building occupants’ exposure to harmful airborne particulates and pollutants.
To support the new specification, the Association’s training Academy also updated two of its air hygiene training courses designed so contractors could help commercial building clients meet health & safety obligations.
Better ventilation management allows the system to operate more efficiently and reduces wear and tear so is an increasingly important consideration when retrofitting buildings to achieve net zero and improve the health and well-being of occupants.
Healthcare specialist Dr Philip Webb, chief executive of Respiratory Innovation Wales (RIW), said this kind of facilities management was essential to address a growing “indoor environmental quality (IEQ) crisis” and reduce excess deaths related to respiratory, cardiovascular, and mental health conditions.
He called for a fundamental reassessment of the way public money and resources were allocated to tackling air quality, which he says is responsible for higher numbers of excess deaths than the Covid-19 pandemic, cancer, heart disease and mental health combined.
According to data from Public Health Wales, Covid-19 was responsible for 38 deaths per 100,000 of the global population, smoking annually accounts for 180, and cancer 278, but air quality is responsible for up to 1,400 excess deaths per 100,000 every year. However, it receives a tiny fraction of the public money and resources allocated to health and wellbeing services.
Webb also pointed out that there were 3,000 new occupational asthma cases reported in the UK every year linked to the air quality in workplaces.
“We are suffering from a legacy of poor building design dating back to the 1960s and 70s,” he said. “If properly supported, facilities and building management systems could have a bigger impact on health and wellbeing than the whole of the global health and social care system.”
This is a powerful message that should resonate with all building users including those currently less inclined to put up with the potential disruption of a retrofit transition to alternative heating systems.
Explaining that heat pumps are good for your health as well as your pocket and climate conscience should make for a highly persuasive argument that might just get the market moving more quickly.
TR19® Air costs £75 for BESA members and £150 for non-members and can be downloaded from the BESA website. Anyone booking onto one of the BESA Academy training courses will also receive a free copy. Details can be found here.
www.theBESA.com
