Thousands of residents to benefit from water source heating and cooling technology

The government has been pushing heat pumps as an alternative to gas boilers and its £450m heat pump grant scheme runs until 2028. 

It offers £5,000 towards the installation of an air source heat pump and £6,000 off a ground source heat pump, as well as zero VAT on installations.

The government aims to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028 to cut carbon emissions, however last year only 55,000 were sold in the UK.

This water source technology also comes as the government is consulting on the proposed Future Homes Standard (FHS) for new build homes, to be introduced in 2025.

The FHS will require new homes to reduce carbon emissions by at least 75% through low-carbon heating systems and fabric standards. Gas or oil boilers in new build homes will therefore effectively be banned in two years’ time.

The technology in use at Welborne Garden Village will draw water from Portsmouth Water’s underground Hoads Hill Reservoir. The developer, Buckland Group, believes that the process is more efficient than air source heat pumps due to the more stable and higher average temperature of the reservoir.

Bob Taylor, chief executive at Portsmouth Water, said: “The water that supplies our service reservoir at Hoads Hill comes from an underground aquifer that has the capacity to supply natural energy to the low-carbon heat network serving the development. Longer term, the design principles here are a blueprint for future environmentally led developments right across the UK.”

At the same time, the network has the ability to provide cooling in the warmer months by reversing the process and expelling heat back into the reservoir, and it can also transfer heat between homes and other buildings. 

Mark Thistlethwayte, chair of Buckland Group, said: “Being involved in Welborne for the long term both financially and practically, Buckland is taking a different development approach to mainstream house builders. We are designing and developing the community holistically, so we can take strategic decisions to invest in innovative technology and deploy it at scale.”

Alastair Murray, founder and chief executive at Rendesco and director at Last Mile Heat, said his firms are “relishing the opportunity” to work on this development. 

He said: “With the Future Homes Standard now confirmed for 2025, we are seeing a huge gap opening up between the house builders that are embracing low-carbon heating, for the benefits that it offers their customers, and those that are not.

“This project is a template for future housing developments of all shapes and sizes and gives developers the confidence to design their projects, no matter how big or small, around our low-carbon heat networks.”