Heat pump R&D centre nears completion
23rd June 2025
UK: Ideal Heating’s new £19.2m UK Technology Centre (UKTC) in Hull is undergoing final fit-out prior to its opening later this year.
Although originally planned to be opened in early 2025, the facility is now due to be operational from September. It forms part of a wider £60m investment across the company’s Hull site and will enhance the company’s R&D capabilities, providing a testbed for low carbon technologies, including heat pumps.
The new centre will bring together more than 100 R&D and product development specialists who are currently located in various facilities across the site.
During a recent visit to the site by Ideal’s senior team members, the company’s R&D director (thermodynamics) Stephen Patton said: “Bringing world-class equipment and testing facilities to our site in Hull will accelerate and advance the development of our products. The UKTC brings with it significant benefits in time, cost and efficiency of R&D processes.”
The UKTC will feature six climatic chambers, with temperature and humidity controlled from -20°C to 50°C. It will allow Ideal to stress-test products in even the most dramatic and extreme of temperatures and environments.
Alongside the climatic chambers are specialist test chambers including hemi-anechoic sound chambers, and electromagnetic interference test facilities.
Ideal Heating’s R&D team will relocate from their existing facilities to the UKTC in phases. Product testing in the climatic chambers will begin in September, with anechoic and EMC testing due to commence in early 2026.
The facility also includes an in-house training room and a 3D printing facility, which will be used to produce prototype components and parts.
The UKTC has been designed and built to BREEAM standard and incorporates key sustainability features including LED lighting and controls, air-source heat pumps, a mechanical heat recovery system, sub-metering of electrical distribution, and high-performance building fabric to reduce heat loss. Ideal Heating is also installing new solar panels at the Hull site.
The UKTC development has been principally delivered by Yorkshire-based contractor Henry Boot Construction.
The project is backed by more than £2m of seed capital funding from Humber Freeport.
