“I’ve been using heat pumps for 20 years,” he says. “I know what they can and can’t do. The idea that you can get your bills down is going to be a very rare case.”
As one of Britain’s foremost green energy tycoons, Vince’s cynicism is striking. His declaration that heat pumps have been “mis-sold” has made national headlines at a time when Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, is heavily pushing them – not least because Vince has donated around £5 million to Labour.
Miliband’s latest green energy announcement, the Warm Homes Plan, sets aside £2.7 billion to fund heat pump grants worth £7,500 each, with a target to hit 450,000 installations a year by 2030.
Heat pumps warm homes by drawing air from the outside, and are considered a low-carbon alternative to a boiler as they run on electricity rather than gas.
Yet many – including Vince – are doubtful that the economics of installing a heat pump stack up at a time when Britain’s electricity costs remain among the highest in the world.
“Gas is a quarter of the price of electricity so a heat pump has a monumental task ahead of it just to keep bills the same,” Vince says.
To prove cost-effective, a heat pump needs a coefficient of performance – the measure of how much heat is produced per unit of electricity used – of four. According to a Government-funded report published at the end of 2024, the average is around 2.8, which Vince says would push an energy bill up by 30%.
Telegraph analysis has found it costs £80 a year more to keep a home warm with a heat pump than a gas boiler in Britain. Research by the Green Britain Foundation, a charity founded by Vince, revealed that two-thirds of heat pump owners find that their home is now more expensive to heat than under their old heating system....<<<Read More>>>...
