As energy companies continue to increase prices there is an even greater requirement for end users to reduce their gas usage and in turn their energy bills. As well as that, the Government needs to meet agreed targets in terms of a low carbon future.

Both goals are achievable and the technology to do it already exists. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be as complicated as some might think. The increasing number of renewable products available has unsurprisingly been caught in the headlights, but boiler technology has continued to develop resulting in some innovative new ways to deliver low carbon heating and hot water for households across the UK.

For example, Alpha positions the humble high efficiency gas boiler at the centre of the heating system and thanks to our innovative thinking, make it possible for it to work in conjunction with products like GasSaver, in order to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

GasSaver sits neatly above an Alpha high efficiency boiler and uses flue gas heat recovery to pre-heat the water from the incoming mains. Thereby, the boiler doesn’t need to work as hard to get the water to the required temperature, which means less gas used and therefore reduced energy bills.

But it goes further than that. The SolarSmart system is unique in that it works with a combination boiler. A stored supply of hot water is heated purely using free energy from the sun, with the boiler essentially becoming a support system that only needs to fire to deliver minimal additional heat when required.

The result is a low carbon, whole house solution which delivers the required flow rate of water at the correct temperature and has the potential to provide big savings on end user energy bills and lower carbon emissions.