Installing an electric heat pump

Our role is to give you help and advice and make sure your electricity supply is ready and safe for connecting a heat pump. Depending on your circumstances, your installer will either be able to connect your heat pump straight away and notify us, or we will need to complete some work first. 

To make it easier for installers, we have created a Smart Connect portal where they can apply or notify us of single domestic installations. Smart Connect will automatically assess applications and either issue approval or refer the job to the relevant teams for further assessment. To check if your device is eligible to be raised on Smart Connect, please visit our Smart Connect page.

Alternatively, if your device does not meet our Smart Connect criteria or if you’re installing multiple devices at you property, your installer can download and complete the notification form below and send it back to us at  MBX-heatpumps@ukpowernetworks.co.uk

Before submitting your form, please ask your installer to make sure the proposed new heat pump is registered on the ENA's heat pump database. Guidance for installers is available here.

In 2019 the UK became the first major economy in the world to pledge Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050 as a necessary and fundamental measure to end its contribution to global warming. We are determined to actively facilitate Net Zero.

To do that we’re committed to helping our customers 'decarbonise' their heating systems. This is also sometimes called ‘heating decarbonisation’ or ‘the decarbonisation of heat’. 

What it really means is removing a lot of the carbon that is currently emitted heating homes and businesses around the UK. It’s a little known fact that burning fossil fuels like oil or gas for heating is responsible for around a third of total emissions. 

Download our heat strategy to find out more about our approach to decarbonising heat.

A heat pump is a device that uses electricity to transfer heat from one environment to the other, similar to how a refrigerator works. There are many different commercially available options. These include those which use air drawn from outside your property ('air source') and those which use heat drawn from underground ('ground source'). Some heat pumps are similar to the photo at the top of this page, which blow hot air into your home like air conditioning units. Other heat pumps can be used to heat water instead, and pump that warm water through traditional household radiators. For a complete guide to heat pumps, visit the Renewable Energy Hub. We’ve also included some helpful links below if you want to find out more.

While natural gas is the main source of household heating in the UK, we forecast that in the future more and more homes will switch from mainly gas to mainly electric heating. This could help achieve Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050, because electricity can be supplied by renewables like solar or wind.  There has been significant progress on this front in the last decade - a record-breaking 37% of the UK's energy came from renewable sources in the 12 months to June 2020.