Government Urged to Back Electric Showers in Warm Homes Plan
Posted by: electime 23rd January 2026
The government is being urged to incentivise both consumers and housebuilders to adopt electric showers, including high-efficiency models designed to connect to Waste Water Heat Recovery Systems (WWHRS).
The callout from Triton Showers follows the launch of the Warm Homes Plan, which commits £15bn to helping households cut energy bills through a trio of low-carbon technologies: heat pumps, solar PV and batteries.
With a focus on insulation and heating upgrades, the British manufacturer believes reducing hot water consumption, which accounts for a large proportion of domestic energy use, must be further targeted in the roadmap.
As the largest domestic consumer of water and responsible for generating half of hot water demand, Triton says showers are a prime candidate for additional savings.
Electric models provide instant hot water, decouple hot water from space heating, eliminate standing losses and save on space, energy and running costs. Paired with a WWHRS, this presents a passive way to make extra gains.
A WWHRS captures heat from the shower wastewater, which is normally lost down the drain, and uses it to preheat the incoming cold mains water to the electric shower unit.
Independent analysis undertaken by Talan, a global technology and consulting firm specialising in technology and data intelligence, has estimated significant at-scale savings from deploying this electric shower technology.
Performance data shows impressive results: annual energy use can be cut by up to 51 per cent, water consumption by 44 per cent, and carbon emissions by 37 per cent when compared with one of today’s efficient 8-litre-per-minute mixer showers – helping reduce bills for homeowners.
Electric showers are also significant for hard-to-treat homes that face barriers when fitting heat pumps and hot water cylinders, such as flats and terraced houses, where space and technical constraints limit retrofit options.
Paul Ravnbo-West, market development manager at Triton Showers, said: “The Warm Homes Plan is ambitious, well-funded, and generally transformative in intent, but hot water is folded into the narrative on heat, rather than being given its own strategic focus.”
“Hot water is mentioned, but almost always as a secondary load within those systems rather than as a first-order challenge in its own right. Even where the plan acknowledges that around two-thirds of building emissions come from space heating and hot water, the policy instruments that follow overwhelmingly target the former.“
”As space heating decarbonises, hot water will become the primary energy load in our homes. Yet the plan never really treats hot water directly. There is no equivalent of a ‘hot water strategy’, no demand-side framing, and no explicit recognition that how we generate hot water can radically change peak loads, infrastructure requirements, and household costs. Hot water is not just a subset of heat. It is its own decarbonisation frontier.
“If the Warm Homes Plan fails to address this explicitly, measurably, and without equal seriousness – an entire class of high-impact, low-disruption solutions such as high-efficiency electric showers will remain invisible in the national narrative.”
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