Is my home going to be a heat pump or heat network property?

For instance, in the City of Edinburgh council area, 17 prospective network zones have been identified, which include the New Town, Old Town & Southside, Leith Walk and other areas. Edinburgh has also identified priority areas for heat pump delivery.

Such plans are still in their early stages, and there is little guarantee attached to them, but they provide some indicators.

For instance, the Glasgow City Council LHEES states that Glasgow  “is a significantly heat dense urban area of Scotland and as such, the deployment of heat networks will be a key mechanism in delivering net zero carbon and therefore is a priority focus.”

It calculates that "around 46% of residents – in around 66% of the city’s homes – have the potential to be connected to district heating networks of some kind".

From Glasgow’s LHEES it’s possible to see if a home may lie within one of Glasgow’s nine primary zones proposed for possible district heating schemes, or even one of its secondary zones.

Professor Dave Pearson director of innovation Star Refrigeration, the company which, in 2021, installed Scotland's largest water source heat pump in the River Clyde, believes “most of the heat will be anchored on water source heat pumps”, which are “ proven, low risk to find and keep using the heat”.

Read more: 

•  Edinburgh City Council's plans for heat pumps and heat networks

• Glasgow City Council's heat pump and heat network plan
• The Scottish council plans for heat pump and district heating networks
• Home retrofitting: lessons and answers from heat pump geeks

“City centre areas, largely non-domestic, will not be individual heat pumps," he said. "There isn’t the available power at a 400V level nor the availability of a heat source for an individual heat pump be it air or ground source in every building."

Star Refrigeration is a global leader in large-scale heat pump technology, and designed and installed, in 2011, the world's largest zero carbon 90°C district heat pump to provide heat for Drammen, a Norwegian city of 64,000 people. Ten years later it installed the Clyde heat pump which heats Queens Quay, and more recently it completed a massive river source heat pump bound for the River Mersey.

There are more large heat networks in development in Scotland. These include Edinburgh's Granton Waterfront, which is set to heat 3500 homes, Midlothian Energy and Vattenfall's energy from waste network, which will heat Shawfair Town,  and the Torry heat network, in Aberdeen, which uses energy from non-recyclable waste.

Prospective map of Glasgow heat network zones (Image: Glasgow City Council)

But these are not the only sources of network heat. Networked ground source heat is also a growing technology, already being pioneered in parts of Scotland by the Cornwall-based developer, Kensa.

CEO Tamsin Lishman, the Scot at the company’s helm, said: “People should be aware that there are alternatives to air source heat pumps. There are a number of different solutions in the future of heat and we need the right mix in the right places.

“We install network ground source heat pumps, using boreholes in the street, as a way to create a really cost-effective solution for flats, tower blocks, terraced houses."

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Ms Lishman sees central plant district heating as working well in dense urban areas. But, she said, groundsource networks, of the type Kensa builds, can address “a real gap in terraced houses, tenements, blocks of flats, tower blocks, which is exactly what’s missing in the current zoning”.

The difficulty around district heating though, is the degree of uncertainty around its roll-out. For many homeowners, particularly those with a home that is close to what’s called “heat pump ready”, the possibility of fitting an individual air-source heat pump offers more certainty than waiting to see whether a network will appear.

Some LHEES suggest a much higher percentage of homes connected than the Climate Change Committee’s suggested 20%. As many as two-thirds of Glasgow's homes, or four-fifths of East Lothian households.

A Glasgow City heat network zone (Image: Glasgow City Council)

For property owners this makes decision-making difficult. Clearer direction is needed quickly. As Andrew Ward of Scottish Power said: “The Scottish Government needs to define exactly what it wants to do for the domestic household. We estimate that about 20% of the UK households will be on a district heating scheme, not air-source heat pumps. If you take the tenements in Glasgow, they’re not getting air-source heat pumps strapped to the sides of each tenement flat.

“We need clear guidelines, saying this is how we’re going to get there - who is going to be on a district heating scheme and who is going to need to get an air-source heat pump.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Heat networks have a major role to play in delivering Scotland’s move to clean heating and to achieving net zero by 2045.

“We are supporting local authorities to develop Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies (LHEES) which are identifying opportunities across Scotland for heat network developments.  To help make these opportunities a reality, our consultation for a Heat in Buildings Bill included proposals to legislate to encourage certain buildings to connect to heat networks, where appropriate.

“We received more than 1700 responses to the consultation and are currently considering these. We will give building owners certainty about whether they are likely to be served by a heat network in future, and the requirements that might apply to them, as soon as we are able.  

“Meanwhile, we are taking a range of actions including creating Scotland’s Heat Network Fund and the Heat Networks Support Unit, which public and private sector organisations are using to develop and bring forward new or expanded heat network projects ready for capital investment.”