Good Energy says its heat pumps are four times more efficient than gas boilers 

Good Energy has said that its air source heat pumps are outstripping gas boiler benchmarks for efficiency by over four times. 

The company said that heat pumps are even more efficient when part of a ‘whole home’ installation, and that its heat pumps achieved an average efficiency of 340%, meaning they generated 3.4 units of heat for every one unit of energy input. 

This makes Good Energy’s heat pumps 4.1 times as efficient as an average gas boiler, based on a 2009 UK government analysis of gas boilers which found average efficiency of 82%. Modern gas boilers are at least 90% efficient according to British Gas, but older models can be as low as 60%. 

Heat pumps are very efficient. But Good Energy heat pumps are *super* efficient.

The data shows that our air source heat pumps generate four times the heat a typical gas boiler does with the same energy input.

Here’s the detail: https://t.co/r7dflhFGnt

— Good Energy (@GoodEnergy) August 3, 2023

Good Energy said their heat pumps are still 3.7 times as efficient as the 92% efficiency demonstrated by the best modern gas boilers. 

The data came from heat pumps that have been installed for a full year, which provided 12 months of data across all seasons. 

The company’s data showed that its customers can save £150 off their annual energy bill compared with a gas boiler, based on a typical household consumption of energy. 

The findings came from a wide variety of homes built from 10 to 100 years ago, and show an improvement on a government study of heat pump efficiency carried out earlier in 2023 by the Energy Systems Catapult which found heat pumps to be 290% efficient. 

Nigel Pocklington, chief executive of Good Energy, said: “This data doesn’t just show that Good Energy’s heat pump installations are a cut above the rest, it shows that when you take a ‘whole home’ approach to clean heating you can beat a gas boiler’s efficiency hands down, in all kinds of property.  

“Thanks to this efficiency, despite the unfavourable pricing of electricity compared to gas, largely due to policy costs rather than real world prices, customers can still cut their running costs as well as their carbon with a heat pump.   

Paul Cullen from Oxfordfordshire, who had a heat pump installed by Good Energy in 2021, said: “It is permanently comfortable. Heat pumps, they work continuously, and that just maintains that level of heat. It’s a world of difference.”