Although ground source heat pumps need electricity to work they can convert one kilowatt of electricity into over three kilowatts of heat. This makes ground source heat pumps over 300% efficient.
Ground source heat pumps are very reliable at providing heat all around the year because the temperature more than a metre below ground remains at around 10º centigrade, even during the winter.
In April 2014 the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (Domestic RHI) scheme was introduced by the Government to reward householders for switching to renewable source of energy.
From April 2019 ground source heat pumps which provide heating to domestic properties using a wet central heating system such as central heating radiators will attract a Domestic RHI tariff of 20.89 pence per kilowatt hour of renewable heat energy they generate.
For a typical four bedroom house with an annual heat demand of 20,000 kilowatt hours per year, the Domestic RHI tariff payment would be £4,178 per year.
Domestic RHI tariffs are paid for seven years which means that if you install a ground source heat pump, the total Domestic RHI tariff you can claim would be £29,246.
In addition to this, the Energy Saving Trust estimates that for a typical four bedroom property, a householder would save around £2,000 per year in heating bills by switching from LPG to a ground source heat pump.
Taking Domestic RHI receipts together with savings in heating bills, the total benefit to a householder in this example would be £43,246 over the seven year claim period of the Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive scheme.