Experiences of early adopters of zero emissions heating

Buildings account for around a fifth of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing these emissions is essential for Scotland to get to net zero. The Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Strategy (HiBS) sets out how to achieve warmer, greener and more efficient heating across all domestic and non-domestic buildings in Scotland by 2045. Achieving this transformation requires making changes to a large number of properties.

This report investigates the experiences of early adopters of zero direct emissions heating (ZDEH) systems amongst private homeowners in Scotland in order to:

• better understand, for example, their motivations, consumer journeys, barriers and enablers
• develop a series of detailed case studies / pen portraits that depict a range of experiences of successful installation.

The report is based on a review of research on early adopters of ZDEH systems, qualitative interviews with households who had recently installed ZDEH systems and testing of a series of pen portraits resulting from the research.