On the right course

It’s widely acknowledged that one of the biggest obstacles to the growth of the UK heat pump market has been the limited number of fully trained heating engineers, but in front of that particular obstacle has been the not-insignificant barrier of the cost of training to become a skilled heat pump installer. As well as the expense of the three- to five-day training course itself, installers, many of whom are likely to be self-employed, have of course also had to sacrifice a few days of earning potential.

While the new government Heat Training Grant won’t stretch far enough to compensate for that loss of income, it does at least provide a decent level of support that will help to alleviate some of the fi nancial burden for installers. And with many manufacturers competing with each other to provide further incentives, the prospect of signing up for a course certainly seems more attractive than it did before the release of the government funding.

As it stands, there is nothing to stop an untrained installer from fitting a heat pump system, but not being MCS registered will prevent them from being able to offer their customers grants from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, and it is hoped that most consumers will be wary of investing in such high-cost technology without doing some research and asking the right questions.

With £500 available per person, the £5m scheme should help to fund the cost of 10,000 installers. Such a figure is well short of the number that will ultimately be needed if the government is going to come close to hitting its ambitious heat pump installation targets, but while the UK remains firmly rooted to the bottom of the European table of heat pump installations (per capita) anything that might help to stimulate the market has to be welcomed.