Scotland needs 1000s of heat pump fitters. Where's the training?

On a factory tour, I've watched as employees, absorbed in multiple tasks, produced complicated units. Assembly line workers slotted parts into place. Operators flashed brazers over components. The site gleamed with a multitude of copper pies and assorted elements.

This factory was originally an air conditioning manufacturing plant, but now 80% of its product is now heat pumps. “We have," said Rodney Ayre, its senior department manager, “the capability for 600,000 units on this site.”

That number is significant. It's also the UK Government's target for heat pumps for 2028. 

But for the multi-manufacturer supply chain of heat pumps to reach people’s homes, a key missing element in the pipeline must be nurtured: installers.

The need for heat pump fitters is something that has reiterated over and over by those in the industry in the course of researching this series.

Robin Parker, mission manager for Scotland from innovation think tank, Nesta, said: “We will need to rapidly build up the heat pump installation industry in Scotland, and that requires more action from UK and Scottish governments.

To accelerate the hitting of those targets, and the sale into the UK of all those heat pump units, Mitsubishi launched, earlier this month, a training centre at this Livingston site. Inside its walls are  bays of heat pumps readied to work on, as well as a pioneering VR equipment through which an air-source heat pump can be explored. 

Lance Hitchins demonstrate heat pump training bay (Image: Mitsubiishi)

The facility is hands on, and practical training at the site follows an online course with webinars. The idea said Lance Hitchins, head of customer experience and a lead on training, is to keep the course short and effective, so that not much time is spent away from work.

He said: “We need to find a way for a scalable solution that enables people to do the training but doesn’t impair the quality.

80-85% of the workers on their courses, said Mr Hitchins, are existing gas installers who are now looking to make the change to renewable energy. get some people who want to reskilll or learn the nuances of our product.

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He added: “We’re working with colleges and trying to convert more women to come into the industry and trying to support them. There are lots of opportunities there. We’ve had our early adopters and now we’re starting to see more traction with those people who think, I’m being asked about air source heat pumps by end users.”

Recently Mitsubishi launched a free-of-charge promotion: for three months they are offering free-of-charge training within Scotland. The company also run a programme in eleven West Lothian schools called Pump It Up and have donated equipment to West Lothian College’s renewable training centre.

Lance Hitchins with Graeme Dey, minister for higher and further education (Image: Mitsubishi)

Mitsubishi is not alone in driving forward the training of new installers. Multiple new training facilities are popping up around Scotland. Among them is the Energy Training Academy in Dalkeith. Its director, Andrew Lamond, believes the government needs to rethink how it is supporting the industry to change.

"Why would heating engineers promote heat pumps,” said Mr Lamond, “when they know they can get a gas boiler installed much quicker? At the moment engineers need to spend money to train in heat pump installation, and they also have to take two or three days out of their schedule to do the training.

"You’re looking at a potential cost of around £5000, once you calculate the cost of training and the earning days lost, which is a lot for a small business or a sole trader. If there was a simple, straightforward business grant available that would take away those blockers."

The Energy Training Academy has recently started a training programme for around 500 heating engineers from a leading energy firm; however, not one of those engineers came from Scotland. This, said Mr Lamond was because in England and Wales, “the government grant for installing a heat pump goes to the installer rather than the homeowner".

He added: "What we would like to see is installers being able to act as advocates for low-carbon heating. With the right incentives they should be able to go into a home that needs its boiler renewed, and to suggest the householder moves to a heat pump. At the moment, there is no incentive for them to do this."

Also delivering training is a fully-equipped heat pump installation classroom in a van that travels to remote areas of Scotland to deliver certified heat pump training. And there’s a project by Nesta and the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employer’s Federation that gives newly trained heat pump installers a heat pump to install in their own home.

There is an opportunity for a Just Transition, bringing gas fitters into the heat pump installation sector, but that shift has been slow to take off.

For manufacturers ensuring skilled installers is also key in terms of delivering consumer satisfaction, since a badly installed heat pump can easily become an inefficient one.

“Any product,” Lance Hitchins said, “is only as good as the person who installs it. You can have the best product in the world, but if you haven’t designed it properly, haven’t installed it properly, you will not see the efficiencies you are expecting to see."

It’s likely that, initially, most installers will be involved in the challenge of installing pumps in new builds - which are also where most of the new heat pumps will go. For those looking to retrofit an older home, however, finding an installer can be a challenge - and it is, perhaps, natural that homeowners are frequently nervous over whether MCS {microgeneration certification scheme} accreditation is enough.

Chris Carus of Loco Home Retrofit, a cooperative which advises people looking to decarbonise their homes in Glasgow, has seen the struggle, particularly of those with pre-1919 homes, to find a fitter.

He said: "There are decent installers who will install in new builds or relatively new constructions and some of the big companies that are coming along are targeting the easier, low hanging fruit, which is good for them as a business, but it’s from a climate crisis point of view it would be good to also tackle the homes that have the greatest emissions and that means older houses.

"Good design is especially important in older houses that already have higher bills - you want to be extra sure the bills are going to go down. There is a very limited number of installers that we are confident are going to design a system that will perform really well. Changes are being made to MCS that will make the audit process more robust, but for now, it’s not a guarantee that it’s going to be a well-performing system."