Samsung leads Oxford heat pump roll out

UK: A consortium led by Samsung Research UK has been awarded £3.2m for the Clean Heat Streets project in Oxford, part of the UK government’s Heat Pump Ready funding programme.

Oxford has an ambition to become a net zero carbon city by 2040 – ten years ahead of the Government’s targets. To achieve this, 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.

Samsung Research is the advanced R&D hub of Korean manufacturer Samsung Electronics. In addition to Samsung, the other consortium members are Oxford Brookes University, Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), GenGame, Passiv UK, local heat pump experts, Alto Energy and Rose Hill and Iffley Low Carbon group.

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.

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 is expected to 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. 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.