A new report from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “Setting efficiency standards for hybrid heat pumps is an important step in creating a solid foundation for a market for hybrid heat pumps.”
Mike Foster, chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, the trade body for manufacturers of boilers, heat pumps and radiators, said such hybrid systems would help cut carbon emissions from millions of homes.
He said: “Installing heat pumps in homes can be very disruptive, often involving installing storage cylinders to hold the hot water they produce. But 60pc of UK homes do not have storage cylinders and lack space to put one in.
“That means the halfway house is to install a hybrid system where a heat pump runs the central heating and a small condensing boiler provides the hot water.”
Ofgem, the energy regulator, said such hybrid schemes could be eligible for grants but only for the heat pump part of the system.
Heat pumps are highly efficient, typically delivering up to four units of heat for each unit of electricity needed to run them.
Grants for their installation stem from Ofgem’s boiler upgrade scheme, which was introduced in May 2022 as a way of reducing the 68m tonnes of CO2 emitted annually from home heating – about 18pc of UK emissions.
Most of those emissions come from the 25m homes fitted with gas-fired boilers and another 2m using oil-fired heating.