Less than 5% of homes in England and Wales were constructed with heat pumps between 2019 and 2023, suggesting that they are failing to take off, Confused.com energy research shows.
Just 4.53% new builds have been built with air source heat pumps, while ground source heat pumps account for just 0.39%. Air source is generally preferred to ground due to the space and the cost of installing the latter.
Poor heat pump adoption comes despite the government proposing that new builds will not be able to use gas boilers from 2025 – though given Rishi Sunak’s history when it comes to ditching net zero promises, there’s no guarantee this will actually happen.
There are some hotspots where heat pumps are common.
In King’s Lynn and West Norfolk over half of new homes built between 2018 and 2023 heat pumps installed, followed by Ceredigion with 39.26% and Breckland with 38.58%.
At the other end of the spectrum, Liverpool (0.08%), Halton (0.08%), and Sandwell (0.04%) have very low adoption rates of air source heat pumps in newly built homes.
