Air source heat pumps
This is the cheapest and least carbon-intensive way to generate your own heat at home. Like a fridge in reverse, the heat pump draws outside air as low as -20°C into the system and converts this into heat for your home.
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Save moneyWatch the videoThis is the cheapest and least carbon-intensive way to generate your own heat at home. You'll only pay for the electricity needed to run the heat pump's compressor and circulating pump. The rest is free heat generated using outside air.
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300% EfficientWatch the videoThis means that for every £1 spent on electricity to run the heat pump, you could generate £3 worth of heat for your home. Heat pumps will work best in well insulated properties.
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Zero harmful emissionsAir source heat pumps generate no harmful emissions from a property, meaning the air both inside and outside of your home is cleaner. There’s also no risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, so you’ll be keeping your family safe too.
Description
Electric air source heat pumps are the best heating solution for new builds and properties that are well-insulated.
As is with more traditional heating, heat pumps generally aren’t designed to take a property from cold to warm as quickly as possible and heating an older, draughtier property will impact its 300% efficiency.
If you are planning to retrospectively install an air source heat pump on a current building, please be aware that you may need larger radiators.
Don’t wait for your boiler to break midwinter to make the change.
Spring and Summer are the best time to make the switch. As with a house extension or roof replacement, it takes time but is worthwhile.
Power Supply
It’s really important to plan ahead and check if your property needs a service upgrade.
Electricity is delivered to your door through an underground network of cables. Some properties don’t have enough capacity in the existing service cable to supply a new heating system ad will need a service upgrade.
Your installer can check with Guernsey Electricity by submitting an additional load application if your property needs a cable upgrade
Frequently asked questions
Making the switch to electric heating is a fantastic investment for your property. Like any property upgrade, the installation will take time to complete and we want to help answer your questions before you make the decision to change.
It works like a fridge in reverse.
Using heat from outdoor air as low as –20°C, the Air Source Heat Pump fan will draw this air into and over a heat exchanger that contains a refrigerant liquid.
An evaporator will then use latent heat in the air to heat this liquid sufficiently until it boilers and creates a gas. It’s because this refrigerant liquid boils at such a low temperature that heat pumps can produce heat using very low air temperatures.
When this gas is compressed, it creates heat and an additional heat exchanger will then remove this heat from the refrigerant. Now in a liquid form, it can be used to heat the water needed for your heating system.
Switching to an electric system is a positive development for your property and similar to other property improvements such as extensions and roof renovations, it will take time to complete.
Lead times will vary depending on workload and availability, and it is worth preparing for your switch to electric in advance.
We also recommend switching during the spring and summer months when possible so the work can be carried out when you do not need to use the heating. Depending on the work required, it may take several weeks from start to finish.
We recommend checking current prices and tariffs online first. Insulating a property is the most effective way to reduce the running costs of any heating system.
Electric Boilers
An electric boiler will cost the average customer in Guernsey roughly 30% less to run than a gas boiler.
Oil is one of the most cheapest commodities and although heating oil may initially have a lower running cost when new at around 91% efficiency, over time the cost to run oil heating will increase as the efficiency decreases.
Some customers have replaced oil boilers working at less than 70% efficiency, meaning over 30% of their bill was used to pay for waste greenhouse gas emissions rather than valuable heat for their home.
Air Source Heat Pumps
This is the cheapest way to heat your home as you pay for 1kW of electricity to provide 3kW of heat. For example if you paid £100 to heat your home using a traditional electric heating system on the Superheat tariff, this could now cost you £33 to heat the same room (depending on your property insulation).
As gas costs roughly 30% more than traditional electric heating, heat pumps are far cheaper to run. And they even cost less to run than oil heating systems.
Storage Heaters
These systems run overnight on a customer's off-peak Economy 12 tariff and are the cheapest way to run a traditional electric heating system
If you’d like to make the switch to a electric heating but are unsure about the upfront cost, we can help spread the cost of your home heating affordably – just complete a short form and we’ll do the rest.
Some customers have paid as little as £46 a month for their new electric heating system.
We’re able to offer a generous solution through our finance partner Cherry Godfrey Finance Limited. Depending on the size and type of heating solution you choose, this may include a subsidy from Guernsey Electricity.
There will be a different answer to this question for each property depending on the network infrastructure in your area and how much electricity other properties around you are using.
Your neighbour may be in a different position to you if, for example, they had electric heating installed a few years ago.
Your installer will submit an ‘Additional Load Form’ to Guernsey Electricity to establish if there is enough power in the surrounding cable network to power your electric heating system.
Replacing your gas or oil boiler is the quickest and most simple option and is known as a ‘wet system’ as it relies on water heated by electricity to be pumped around the system.
Moving to electric radiators is known as a ‘dry’ system.
This doesn’t need a boiler and all existing radiators linked by pipework can be removed. Electric radiators are then installed throughout the home with a cable supplying each radiator to power it individually. This means each radiator is powered independently and has its own programmer and thermostat.