Oxford has an ambition to become a Net Zero carbon city by 2040 – 10 years ahead of the Government’s targets. To achieve this, tackling Oxford’s building emissions is key. As buildings are responsible for roughly 60% of emissions, it has been identified that over 30,000 air-source heat pumps need to be installed across the city by 2040. The Clean Heat Streets project aims to explore how key barriers to heat pump uptake can be overcome by exploring solutions on a street-by-street basis, rather than an individual home approach.
Tim Bailey, Head of Energy Innovation at Samsung Research UK, commented: “To move from niche to mass adoption of heat pumps we need lots of organisations to work together to build the trust in the technology within local communities. We are delighted to be leading a consortium to install Samsung heat pumps at a high density in selected neighbourhoods in Oxford, and hope implementing our research will continue to grow the take up of heat pumps in the future.”
The project builds upon the work of a six month feasibility study which developed an innovative local area energy mapping approach to identify suitable homes for installing heat pumps and explored the key barriers to heat pump uptake in the Rose Hill area of Oxford. As part of the project, local heat pump experts, Alto Energy, have designed a customer journey and a supply chain, working with Samsung Climate Solutions, to create a more streamlined approach.
Scott Greening, Managing Director of Alto Energy, added: “We are excited to be working with Samsung on the Clean Heat Streets project to create a framework for delivering heat pumps affordably and at scale. We’re based in Oxfordshire, where the project is taking place, and believe we can add value to the local economy by enabling more local installers to get started installing heat pumps.”
By working to streamline the installation process, and through the economies-of-scale inherent in a street-by-street approach, the Clean Heat Streets project will be able to offer a lower installation cost to the homeowner. It will also explore how a large number of heat pumps can be installed within a particular area without causing problems to the network– for example, by causing very high peaks in demand for electricity on winter evenings. The project is working closely with the local Electricity Distribution Network operator (SSEN) to ensure smooth connection processes and avoidance of any network management issues.
The project has identified two electrical substations in Rose Hill connected to residential streets suitable for high numbers of heat pump installations. These electrical substations are part of the link in the chain that delivers electricity from generation to the ‘grid edge’, where it is used by households and businesses. The project is aiming to install 150 heat pumps across these substation areas.
This project is looking for households from the following streets areas within Rose Hill: Courtland Road, Annesley Road, West View Tree Lane, Sheepway Court, Bears Hedge, Hunsdon Road, Abberbury Avenue, Rowney Place, Abberbury Road, Spencer Crescent, Dashwood Road, Ashhurst Way, Fiennes Road, Jersey Road, St. Martins Road and Asquith Road.