Coming in Hot… Heat Pumps, We’re Big Fans!
As the drive towards sustainable and more affordable ways to heat our homes becomes increasingly urgent, we’ve noticed a rise in comms and campaigns promoting the Heat Pumps.
Heat pumps promise to be the cleaner, more energy-efficient alternative to gas boilers, with zero reliance on fossil fuels. Unparalleled by any other technology in the fight against climate change and global warming, Heat Pumps also remove geopolitical challenges associated with reliance on oil-producing countries.
Over the last year, we’ve learned a lot about Heat Pumps and created some key comms to help educate everyday people and policymakers about the potential of this technology.
For each unit of energy used to power a heat pump, sourced from the air or ground, 3 to 4 units of heat are produced. Making heat pumps 300%-400% more efficient than any other heating technology. While they are currently expensive to install, the EU, governments, and policymakers have a key role to play in making them an attractive and attainable option to consumers.
While the UK government has proposed that it will be illegal to add gas boilers to new build properties from 2025 onwards, more needs to be done to enable and encourage households and businesses with existing boilers, to make the switch.
We first worked with Regulatory Assistance Project and Dr Richard Lowes on the report “The perfect fit: Shaping the Fit for 55 package to drive a climate-compatible heat pump market” analysing the EU’s current “Fit for 55 package” and how it could be improved to drive greater use of heat pumps.
In addition, we worked on “A policy toolkit for global mass heat pump deployment” a toolkit and explainer animation series which provides a suite of tools, and advice on how to use Heat Pumps, for policymakers interested in promoting this critical technology. “The structure is loosely based on that of a Greek temple, with foundations and pillars, supporting a rapidly growing heat pump market. The interactive toolkit (which includes clickable links throughout) also features short videos that give an overview of each relevant element of the toolkit.”
We’ve also worked with European Climate Foundation, on their Better Without Boilers campaign, which “calls upon the EU and European leaders to support the shift away from oil and gas boilers to cleaner, more affordable alternatives for Europeans to heat their homes.”
The interactive website provides a set of demands, plus live data on which countries are leading the way in switching to this cleaner alternative technology, and resources library.
Throughout these projects, we’ve come to realise what an impressive, vital solution Heat Pumps provide to ensure cleaner, decarbonized energy consumption that will radically clean up the climate. However, we noticed there’s a real lack of imagery depicting heat pumps. So we wanted to provide this open-source library of icons, to help better resource campaigners to visualize and represent Heat Pumps with ease.
In addition to these downloads, we have also created a set of fun bumper sticker-style graphics for people to share on social media, to help raise awareness, and start conversations about the benefits of Heat Pumps and the urgency of increasing mainstream implementation.
