Heating Industry Coalition Consults on Qualification Criteria for Installers of Low Carbon Heating Systems

A Coalition of Heating Industry bodies with particular interests in Low Carbon Heating Systems today published two consultations on qualification criteria for low carbon heating system training courses.

The first consultation is for the criteria that should apply to training courses for all forms of Low Temperature Heating Systems - widely regarded as necessary, both to allow a future market transformation into systems such as Heat Pumps, but also to ensure the most efficient performance is obtained for modern gas condensing boilers.

The second consultation is for the specific criteria that should apply to training courses specifically for Heat Pumps – which operate at greater efficiencies when able to heat customer’s homes at lower system operating temperatures.

Timetable

Installers are invited to take part in both consultations:

• The Low Temperature Heating Systems draft criteria and link to the consultation questions can be found HERE.
• The Heat Pumps draft criteria and link to the consultation questions can be found HERE.

Both consultations have a deadline of 17:00, 30 June 2020.

Notes:

The Committee on Climate Change has recommended that a widespread transformation from boilers to heat pumps and other low carbon heating systems will need to take place in the next 10-15 years; the industry bodies backing these criteria consider them essential to ensuring sufficient heating engineers are equipped with the necessary training and skills to bring about a challenging, but achievable acceleration of low carbon heating.

The criteria for the generic Low Temperature Heating course have been developed by the Chartered Institute of Heating and Plumbing Engineers, and for the Heat Pump course, by the Heat Pump Association, both in wide consultation with manufacturers, and other industry bodies.

The CIPHE and HPA will collate the responses for each set of criteria respectively, and finalise the criteria before submitting to Ofqual for approval and inclusion in the relevant Competent Persons Schemes. It is expected the first training courses being run to these criteria will be available by the end of 2020.

02-06-2020