Following the successful introduction of OFTEC’s courses covering installation, servicing and commissioning of air source heat pumps, and design of heat pump systems, we can now offer a course in the installation, servicing and commissioning of ground source heat pumps as well.
Put together by a group of industry experts (including manufacturers, certification bodies, heat pump system designers, and approved training and assessment centres) the course follows the requirements of the Minimum Technical Competencies and MCS document MIS 3005-I – The Heat Pump Standard (Installation) – so it ticks all the right boxes.
It covers, among other subjects:
- Health and safety and safe systems of work,
- Low carbon and low temperature central heating systems
- Principles of heat pump selection, sizing and selecting heat pump systems and components,
- Open and closed loop ground source systems,
- Operational characteristics of ground source heat pump units and heat pump system components,
- Fundamental principles of ground source ‘closed loop’ heat pump collector circuit design and component sizing,
- Layouts of ‘open loop’ collector circuits, and
- The requirements to install and test ground source heat pump systems.
The working group which put the course together worked closely with MCS to ensure that it will be able to be used for MCS registration.
It is estimated that by 2028 the UK will need 600,000 heat pump installations each year to meet home heating decarbonisation targets.
That means around 30,000 installers will need to be trained to meet this demand and gain the qualifications required for MCS registration – a large increase on the current number.
