Accelerating heat pump diffusion in the UK: emergent tensions and priority areas for change

Energy efficiency is essential to meeting international carbon reduction ambitions. Shifting how energy services are delivered through the adoption of strategic technologies, like heat pumps for domestic heating, offers one important route to deliver efficiency gains if associated infrastructures, markets, cultures, and practices around broader systems can be transformed as well. Transformative Innovation Policy calls for new, reflexive, multi-actor governance practices capable of guiding such transformative change in particular directions whilst remaining open and responsive to system developments as they unfold. Yet seldom are stakeholders afforded the chance to deliberate on progress towards system transformation and offer insights on what is needed to expediate change. In this paper we draw on data from three deliberative workshops carried out in 2023 in which experts from across industry, manufacturing, policy, and research explored what is required to accelerate the diffusion of heat pumps in the UK. Our findings suggest decision theatres are a promising tool for reflexive evaluation of policy and identify five priority areas for change: (1) fostering a clear narrative, (2) developing and delivering a coherent, long-term policy, (3) increasing affordability, (4) building installer capacity, and (5) improving customer journeys. Although individual policies remain important, these priority areas shift the focus from policy instruments to broader considerations about the coherence of policy mixes and strategy for system transformations. Our work affirms how tensions arise in reflexive governance practices and supports the use of decision theatres as a method for exploring their implications in practice.