What are the benefits of installing a heat pump?
Protection Against Rising Energy Prices
Around 70-80% of the energy required by heat pumps is extracted from latent heat stored in the air, ground and water, this means that you're not tied into contracts with gas and oil providers where the price is subject to increases. Heat pumps require a small amount of electricity to operate, which means that any changes to pricing will only have a marginal impact on your energy bills.
Economic Heating
Heat pumps are extremely efficient and a well-performing ground source heat pump can produce 4kWh of heat energy for every 1kW of electricity – that’s an efficiency of 400%. By comparison a new gas boiler has an efficiency of 90%. This improved efficiency significantly reduces energy bills, with savings of up 75%.
Return on Investment
Although heat pumps have a higher initial cost than other heating systems such as boilers, the savings you'll generate by installing a heat pump will balance out this investment, and thanks to their long lifespan of around 20 years for an air source heat pump and 25+ years for a ground source, you'll benefit from lower energy bills for decades.
Grant Payments
As well as benefitting from lower energy bills, homeowners can also claim the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). This financial incentive scheme was developed by the government to help increase adoption of renewable technologies in the home, contributing to lower carbon emissions. RHI offers quarterly payment for 7 years after your heat pump has been installed and in most cases you'll receive a complete return on your investment or even make a profit.
Reduced Carbon Footprint
An air source heat pump can help the average home cut their carbon emissions by 23 tonnes over 10 years - and with a ground source heat pump the saving is even greater. As heat pumps are so efficient, they require just a small amount of electricity operate (it's the production of the electricity which generates the carbon). However if you choose a renewable electricity tariff where electricity is generate by wind and solar, then your carbon footprint will be greatly reduced, helping the UK to reach carbon net zero targets by 2050.
Comfort
Heat pumps are a 'fit and forget' technology. Once installed you can set your temperature preferences and heating schedules using the MasterTherm smartphone app or pGDx controller, then sit back and relax as your heat pump will self-optimise to deliver your preferences as efficiently as possible, also taking outdoor temperatures and weather forecasts into account. MasterTherm heat pumps are also compatible with time of use tariffs like Agile Octopus and will optimise to deliver your heat preferences when electricity costs less to automate additional savings on top of the already low cost of running a heat pump.
Cooling
MasterTherm heat pumps have the ability to offer cooling during warmer periods of the year, they can do this either passively or actively. The benefits of using a heat pump for cooling is that it's one complete system - rather than having a boiler for heating and an air con unit for cooling. This can save space, installation cost and operatingand maintenance costs. Adding cooling to your home can help to increase its value by providing year-round comfort and climate control.
Year-round Operation
During the summer period when there is little demand on heating, heat pumps can be used for other purposes such as heating swimming pools. If you have solar thermal technology installed with a ground source heat pump, you can also store excess solar thermal energy in the ground loops of the heat pump which can reduce operating costs even further by increasing efficiency.