Swedish cleantech firm Aira and smart home provider Hive have formed a long-term strategic partnership to help boost the number of heat pumps being installed in the UK.
The over two million users of the Hive smart home heating app, which is owned by British Gas parent company Centrica, will now be able to purchase Aira heat pumps through Hive’s customer referral service, with Aira offering an all-inclusive payment plan for its heat pumps and a 15-year product guarantee.
This is not the first time Hive has partnered with a leading heat pump manufacturer to increase the attractiveness of heat pumps to its customers. In May of last year, Hive joined forces with heat pump manufacturer Daikin, bringing Daikin’s ‘Altherma 3’ heat pumps will into Hive’s energy management ecosystem and allowing control of the system from the Hive app.
Dan Rosenfield, managing director of Hive commented: “Our partnership with Aira brings together the best of British tech and innovative Scandinavian design to provide customers with more choice in how they electrify their home heating.
“Domestic heating is one of the largest emitters of carbon in the UK which is why we’re collaborating with other like-minded businesses to address this challenge and help customers make the switch to a lower-carbon future.”
Martin Lewerth, Aira Group CEO added: “In some of the coldest parts of Europe such as Scandinavia, heat pump technology has been widely used to heat homes for decades, and yet, nations like the UK are still in the very early stages of adoption. This partnership will help solidify heat pumps as a cleaner and more affordable heating solution for UK households, increasing awareness and accessibility – and ultimately supporting the clean-energy transition.”
Heat pumps on the rise
According to the latest statistics from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), heat pumps are becoming increasingly popular as time goes on.
Applications to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), a £7,500 grant for homeowners wishing to install a heat pump have increased 27% year on year, with 62,191 applications being made to the BUS as of the end of November 2024. To date, almost 40,000 grants have been paid through the scheme, with the majority of these (51%) paid to homes replacing their gas boiler systems, with 19% using the grant to replace an oil heating system and 16% adding a heat pump to a property that had no previous heating system at all.
