Heat pumps are coming. Whether these will be giant heat pumps warming district heat schemes, smaller individual air-source heat pumps, or networked ground source heat pumps fuelling streets or buildings, the chances are that in the coming years a heat pump will become part of your life.

That's why The Herald has dedicated our latest series to home heating.

This transition is happening for a good reason. We are doing it for the planet, the children of today, and those who stand to bear the worst devastations of climate change. A fifth of Scotland’s emissions are from buildings, 13% of that from domestic buildings, and the vast majority of those are the result of how we heat our homes.

With climate change impacts already felt at home and globally, particularly in those parts of the world experiencing record heat, there is undoubtedly a moral impetus behind these changes. 

But with, in 2023, only 6,000 heat pumps installed, less than half the figure in the pathway set out by the UK Climate Change Committee, this is a decarbonisation area in which Scotland is failing.

Part of this lack of uptake is a result of fear, among homeowners, of the financial impact - and some of that is merited. The upfront cost of a heat pump installation, even with the generous grants and interest-free loans available through Home Energy Scotland, is still significant.

There is also, particularly in the wake of the eye-watering bills that have followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a nervousness around a technology that may increase energy bills. Even if the most efficient systems are seeing savings, it’s hard to beat gas when its price is a quarter that of electricity.

It is important that this transition pulls people out of fuel poverty rather than throwing more into it.

A further barrier is confusion. When it comes to heat pumps, there is often so much noise it is difficult to cut through to the truth. A proliferation of conflicting and often negative stories across the media means it can be difficult for the energy client or homeowner  to work out what the best step is. And, since heat pumps are still so rare, most of us have also never seen one installed at a home. 

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We often hear that heat pumps are “noisy”, “won’t work in the cold” and are only appropriate for the “highly insulated new builds”. The series will seek to dig into the truth of these statements.

The vast majority of heat pumps are currently installed in new builds, and that pattern will amplify with the ban which came into effect in April on ‘polluting’ heating in new builds.  What that ban means for developers will be investigated by business writer, Kirsty Dorsey.

But just over half of us live in homes built before 1965, and nearly a fifth dwell in pre-1919 buildings, and it is precisely these buildings that currently have the largest carbon footprint. As Chris Carus of Loco Home Retrofit Glasgow put it, "One of the reasons we work with old homes is because these make the biggest difference. They have the highest emissions but don't get much support and many installers aren't comfortable with working with them."

As part of the series we will look at is how early adopters have achieved retrofits in older houses, even in some traditional tenement flats. "Can a 250-year-old  house like this take a heat pump?” said Pat Hackett. "Yes. And can I make this house zero carbon? Nearly."

We will also seek out lessons from the heat pump geeks, early adopters and enthusiasts, who often install the full range of energy efficiency measures and micro renewables to create a system that, can bring their bills lower than gas.

We talk to Lord William Haughey, who has supplied air conditioning units (a form of heat pump) to buildings for 40 years, but has been a vocal critic of their mass adoption as heat source.  He reiterated this, saying, "Heat pumps are not the solution. We should be trying to find the solution - it starts with insulation."

One of his biggest criticisms of heat pumps was, he said, that "you do not get the efficiencies that people were saying that you got.”

Scotland has made great progress in decarbonising electricity.  In 2022 Scottish renewables alone, for the first time, generated more power than the country used. Heat pumps are key jigsaw pieces in the next stage of the transition. But at the current rate of installation, it will take around 350 years for Scotland's homes to be decarbonised.

One of the issues we will look at is whether the national grid can support this mass switch from gas to electricity as  heat source. This is a particularly thorny question given there are already issues over capacity. Will the grid be ready, and can it expand rapidly enough, if there was to be an enthusiastic uptake of heat pumps?

The Heat in Buildings consultation, which finished in March, gives strong pointers for direction of travel. The scale of this transition is huge, akin to a War Effort, requiring manufacturers, installers, advisors, planning officers, electrical engineers, plasterers, plumbers, a well as homeowners and landlords.

For we are part of this too. Without our participation, it won't happen. For many homeowners, the problem is lack of clarity. This is one of the reasons we have created this series, to try to sift through the multiple messages and research.

But there is a danger, too, in oversimplifying. Every home is different. Even those that look the same, are used differently and have distinct heat demands and energy efficiency issues.  There is also the issue that the individual heat pump is not the only answer. Around 20% of the UK is likely to be connected, instead, to a district heating scheme.

The need for clearer direction from government to help guide homeowners, energy suppliers, manufacturers and developers, was expressed by many of those we spoke to, including Andrew Ward, CEO of UK Retail at Scottish Power. 

"Clarity is crucial," he said, " The Scottish Government needs to define exactly what it wants to do for the domestic household. We need clear guidelines, saying this is how we’re going to get there."