Ideal Heating: Hull firm given green light for £12.5m low carbon research and development facility

Ideal Heating has received the green light to establish a new £12.5 million research and development (R&D) facility to support low carbon technologies including heat pumps.
Michael Crossland
By Michael Crossland
Published 14th Aug 2023, 16:45 BST

Hull City Council has granted full planning permission for the UK Technology Centre at Ideal Heating’s headquarters site in the city. The R&D facility will create a new hub for product development and advancements in heating solutions.

The facility, located at Ideal Heating’s site on National Avenue in Hull, will also see the firm expand its R&D team, creating new skilled jobs in the City. Construction of the £12.5 million UK Technology Centre is expected to begin this October and is due to be completed in late 2024. The R&D centre is set to be operational in early 2025.

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Ideal Heating engineering director Helen Villamuera said: “Our UK Technology Centre is part of a major £60 million investment we’re making in our Hull site, to support heat pump manufacturing, distribution and innovation in heating Technologies.

Production director John Cook inspects a Logic Air heat pump at the factory in Hull. Picture: Clay10.Production director John Cook inspects a Logic Air heat pump at the factory in Hull. Picture: Clay10.
Production director John Cook inspects a Logic Air heat pump at the factory in Hull. Picture: Clay10.

“From the outset, Hull City Council has been fully supportive of our plans, which will create highly skilled jobs in the city and expand our existing R&D capabilities at National Avenue.

“We’re delighted to have secured full planning permission for the UK Technology Centre. We will now begin a competitive tender process to appoint a contractor to deliver this project.”

Using the new two-storey building, Ideal Heating aims to help develop and refine the low carbon heating technologies needed to decarbonise UK’s 25 million Homes.

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The Government has set a target of 600,000 heat pumps to be installed in domestic properties annually by 2028.

Laboratory facilities within the 38,000 sq ft building will enable Ideal Heating’s R&D team to simulate a range of scenarios and conditions to test new innovations and advancements. The centre will also house environmental chambers, a heat pump testing area, workshop spaces and a training room.

The facility features roof-mounted solar panels to generate renewable electricity for the building, with air source heat pumps serving the mechanical heating system. LED lighting and controls will also help reduce energy consumption within the building and high-performance building fabrics will reduce heat loss.

The R&D facility is one of a series of major investments from Ideal Heating at its National Avenue site. Construction work was recently completed on a heat pump production facility and expanded distribution centre, totalling £20 million of investment.

Ideal Heating has also opened its £2.2 million National Training and Technology Centre in Hessle, with capacity for up to 5,000 installers every year to train.

Related topics:HeatingHull