Octopus Energy’s generation arm and Legal & General Capital are turbocharging Britain’s heat pump rollout by investing £70 million in the country’s leading manufacturer and installer of ground source heat pumps, The Kensa Group.
This marks the biggest investment ever made in ground source tech in Britain. It will allow Kensa to rapidly expand and install 50,000 ground source heat pumps a year by 2030. The move will drive down costs of heat pumps and reduce reliance on polluting gas boilers.
CEO Dr. Matthew Trewhella and COO James Standley of The Kensa Group, say: “This is a monumental moment for ground source heat pumps.”
The UK is targeting 600,000 heat pump installations a year by 2028 as part of wider efforts to decarbonise the heating industry and realise its net-zero ambitions. Unlocking investment through deals like this will help rapidly grow the country’s heat pump industry, meet net zero targets and deliver jobs. Kensa expects its growth to create more than 7,000 green jobs in the UK by 2030.
This investment will make heat pumps even more accessible to more properties, including retrofits for social housing, terraced housing, and non-domestic buildings. As part of the deal, finance will be provided to offer house builders, housing associations, and non-domestic customers Kensa’s ‘Networked Heat Pumps’ solution at a lower cost. This effectively creates a new renewable energy asset class – kick-starting growth towards a sector that could exceed £1bn by 2030.
