A Staffordshire housing association is changing the heating system of an entire development of bungalows to ground source heat pumps, despite the fact that this supposedly 'green' technology is simply another form of electric heating. Some useful information as to the exact performance of the pumps may be gleaned, however, as the project will be taking part in a survey into the everyday performance of heat pumps in a domestic environment.

Stafford and Rural Homes, a registered charity, is a social landlord that owns and manages 5,600 homes in the borough of Stafford, a small percentage of which are sheltered accommodation with a warden on site or warden-linked.

This heat pump project is for nine warden-linked bungalows in the small village of Swynnerton, Staffordshire, with five of them taking part in the year-long survey by the Energy Saving Trust (EST) to monitor ground and air source heat pumps across the UK in real-life installations.

Colin Roff, Stafford and Rural Homes, explaining the choice of heat pumps rather than for example condensing gas boilers: “When we were looking at replacing the heating in these properties fuel poverty was of course a consideration as economic heating is very important to our tenants. We needed to find something that was future-proof and cost-effective with no costly regular maintenance bills or annual inspections visits. We’re now considering air source heat pumps for another site, which is unsuitable for the ground source option as it is on a hill.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, electric heating is popular with the government as it appears to be low carbon, especially at the point of use and doubly so if enough nuclear generating capacity is available. Consequently, the Stafford and Rural Homes Swynnerton project was able to obtain a grant for 50% of the cost of the heat pump installation under Phase 2 of the Low Carbon Building Programme.

Stafford and Rural Homes is undertaking a home repair and improvement programme of more than £60 million by 2010 throughout its housing stock, and have apparently fallen foul of the large amount of misleading information promoting heat pumps as some kind of renewable energy option which is currently available.

The pumps are claimed to draw as much as 75 per cent of the energy needed for heating from solar energy stored in the ground.

However, according to the influential environmental building organisation, the AECB, this is only the case in optimum climatic conditions. A wood burning district heating system would provide the same heat from solar energy stored by trees with minimal recourse to the national grid, and if the wood was locally and sustainably sourced, would be actually a lower carbon and possibly cheaper option.