Earth Notes: General Bibliography (wollard2025flexibility)

• [wollard2025flexibility] Max Woollard and Oliver Berry and Andrew Sissons and Chris Watling and Morely Coulson et al. The future of heat: How to drive decarbonisation with innovative tariffs and automated flexibility (accessed 2025-10-29), 2025-10-24, ISBN 978-1-916699-41-0, PDF (www) (BibTeX).
  abstract

  Two of the largest barriers to heat pump adoption are considered to be the upfront cost of installation and their running costs. Promising routes to reducing running costs are the rebalancing of levies to reduce the spark gap, increasing heat pump coefficient of performance (COPs), and the use of innovative tariff types. An additional route to reducing running costs could be using heat pumps flexibly, whereby their use corresponds to the price of electricity, avoiding times when electricity is most expensive. This trial explored the incorporation of automated flexibility into a novel tariff type, a type-of-use tariff offered by OVO called Heat Pump Plus. Users of Heat Pump Plus receive a flat rate tariff of 15p/kWh — but only on the electricity consumed by their heat pump. We shifted electrical demand away from peak periods by increasing setpoint temperatures by +1°C during a preheating period, then decreasing setpoint temperatures by -1°C during the peak period. The benefits of successfully developed automated flexibility are significant to both consumers and suppliers. Suppliers could shift the electricity that they sell to times when generation is cheaper and greener. In return, consumers are able to reduce their electrical bills by using a cheaper tariff.
  note

  [[**CS1] [**UF] [**UA] Some key results Quote: "We successfully managed to remotely automate our participants' heat pumps, keeping internal temperatures within an acceptable range by preheating homes in advance of peak times. We found that, on average, 30% of each home's space heating electrical demand was shifted away from the peak period between 4 pm and 7 pm. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction with their internal temperatures in the weekly surveys, with 88% of responses being satisfied, 7% being neutral, and only 5% dissatisfied." Note that Quote: "Our results were inconclusive about whether our intervention affected daily COP or total daily electrical consumption." Conclusion Quote: "... heat pump owners could make use of automated type-of-use tariffs such as Heat Pump Plus and potentially save up to £440 per year compared to a standard variable rate. ..."]