In our lifetimes, cities will smell like the countryside

21 December 2020: Opinion piece by Greg Jackson, chief executive and founder of super-innovative energy supplier, Octopus Energy (and also provider of the Mayor’s London Power supply offering) in this morning’s City AM. Greg writes about the potential of heat pumps to not only help decarbonise heating in our homes, but also help drive down pollution, stating that existing “Gas boilers are responsible for over 20 per cent of all the nitrogen oxides in urban areas. These gases are deadly, contributing to asthma, lung cancer, and other serious health problems.” Heat pumps are at present significantly more expensive that conventional gas boilers to install (somewhere between 4-5 times the price) – but I agree with Greg’s following comment that “Octopus’s analysis shows that these costs too can be driven down. A heat pump is really only a fan, a motor and a few pipes with heat-transfer fluid. That is so much simpler than the complexities required for combusting gas. As soon as we’re manufacturing at volume, heat pumps will plummet in price.” Read the full article at City AM here. The analysis referred to would be interesting to see but doesn’t appear to be published on Octopus Energy’s website …as yet?