Swedish ‘Spotify of heat pumps’ hopes to reach more UK homes

[AE-NMidlands]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... e-uk-homes:

Aira, which offers subscription service at no upfront cost, has sights set on UK’s growing heat pump market
Britain’s plan to wean homes off fossil fuels has had a tepid start, but despite its lukewarm beginning, the market for heat pumps is hotting up.
The Swedish clean energy company Aira is leading a new wave of companies preparing to harness the growing interest in low-carbon home heating, and is positioning itself as the “Spotify of heat pumps”.
The company’s chief executive, Martin Lewerth, believes its subscription service could soon help 5m households across Europe – including 1m in the UK – turn their back on gas boilers for good.

Aira hopes to counter the nagging concerns that have hampered Britain’s take-up of heat pumps by offering an end-to-end subscription service. For a monthly payment and no upfront charge, its engineers will install and then service the kit.
“The number one hurdle for many consumers is the high upfront costs of buying and installing a heat pump. So we’re removing that,” he said. “We don’t want to help affluent households only – we want to make heat pumps available to many households across Europe.”

Aira was founded last year in Stockholm with the backing of the Swedish impact investor Vargas, but it has its sights set on European countries where the heat pump market is preparing to grow at pace. It began a pilot scheme in Italy earlier this year, and plans to launch in Germany as well as the UK.

As part of this plan, it will invest £300m in the next three years in a series of academies across the UK, which it predicts will produce an 8,000-strong army of skilled installers to fit the heat pumps, manufactured at its factory in Poland. Its first two UK academies will be based in Sheffield and London.
This workforce will underpin Aira’s commitment to complete each installation within 30 days of order, and provide a 10-year service guarantee that households will enjoy 20C comfort on even the coldest day of the year.
and a bit more.

All sounds good news - but how embarrassing that a foreign company has to step in to do what our govt should have been doing for a decade or more.