Scottish islands and rural areas have led the way on heat pump installations, as the country, as a whole, has fallen far short of the targets committed to by the Scottish Government.
Using the most recent data from Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), The Herald has created a map showing the rise in heat-pump households in different local authorities.
Leading the pack are two local authorities areas in Scotland where MCS estimate that more than 1-in-10 homes already have a heat pump, Na h-Eileanan Siar and the Orkney Islands.
In a further two local authorities, Argyll and Bute, and the Shetland Islands, almost 1-in-12 homes already have a heat pump.
Progress during the last year, 2023, was similarly geographically uneven. Taking into account the number of homes in the area, the local authorities with the highest relative numbers of heat pump installs during 2023 were Dumfries and Galloway, Na h-Eileanan Siar and Argyll and Bute.
There were also relatively higher installation rates in Highland, Moray, Orkney, the Borders, Shetland, and in Perth and Kinross.
Overall, however, the picture is one of failure to meet targets. The Scottish Government committed to installing between 80,000 and 100, 000 heat pumps cumulatively over the years 2021-2026. In early 2023, The Herald reported, Patrick Harvie, then minister for Zero Carbon buildings, told MSPs that at least 100,000 electric heat pumps would need to be installed in homes a year by the end of the decade, but stressed the ambition remained on track.
How off-target is Scotland?
In March this year, the UK Climate Change Committee issued a report on Scotland’s progress towards its targets. The report was particularly damning, declaring Scotland’s overall Net Zero plan “no longer credible”, and foreshadowed the recent dropping of the 2030 Net Zero target by the Scottish Government.
Among the failures the report highlighted was that Scotland was falling particularly short on domestic heat pump installations, only 6,000 of which were executed in Scotland in 2023, less than half of those indicated by the CCC’s pathway. The report said: “This needs to increase to more than 80,000 per year by the end of the decade.”
However, it also noted: “There are welcome bold proposals in the Heat in Buildings consultation, which if implemented could become a template for the rest of the UK. But these proposals must be delivered in practice and the planned rate of decarbonisation will not achieve those promised in 2020.”
Even Scotland’s original targets for the current years, however, were less than the Climate Change Commission’s recommendations in its ‘balanced pathway’ of 136,000 heat pumps installed cumulatively over 2021-26.
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A report by Audit Scotland, the body responsible for making sure public money is well spent, also drew attention to the scale of the challenge, saying, “There are several risks to success. Unless the scale and pace of activity significantly increase the Scottish Government’s ambition will not be met.”
The Heat in Buildings strategy is pushing this forward by requiring no new fossil fuel installations in new builds from this year, no oil replacements from 2025 and no gas replacements from 2030.
How does this compare with the rest of the UK?
In their (2022) Balanced Net Zero Pathway, the Committee on Climate Change recommended that more than 27 million heat pumps be installed in UK homes by 2050. In 2020, the UK Government set a target of 600,000 installations a year by 2028. But the first 19 months of their heat pump grant scheme, between May 2022 and December 2023, saw only 18,900 heat pumps installed, less than half of the projected 50,000 installations.
How does the UK compare with other European countries?
The most recent report from the European Heat Pump Association, published in February this year, showed that whilst most European countries are way ahead of the UK in terms of percentage of heat pump households, sales of heat pumps in many European countries were stalling, and down 5% on 2022. This reversed a decade of growth.
The report blamed "cheap gas and expensive bank loans" for the fall off. It also noted that the UK had seen a growth of 4% in sales in that year.
Research also shows that many of the countries that have higher heat pump uptake don't have such a huge cost differential between cheap gas and more expensive electricity, which in the UK is around four times the price of gas.
Key figures
£33 billion Scottish Government estimated cost of delivery of Heat in Buildings Strategy
£1.8 billion Funding committed over current parliamentary term
35,000 Heat pumps currently installed in Scotland (according to MCS data)
6,208 Heat pump installations in 2023 in Scotland 25%: The increase in installations in Scotland between 2022 and 2023.
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