In comments sure to rile Ed Miliband, green energy tycoon Dale Vince, speaking to the Telegraph’s Alex Marsh, says heat pumps are overhyped and mis-sold, warning that Labour’s Warm Homes Plan could leave the country’s poor out in the cold. Here’s an excerpt:

“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.

Asked last week about the findings, Miliband said: “Dale has very strong views that I don’t agree with on heat pumps.”

He added: “Our data suggests something different from what that data suggests. All of the evidence I’ve seen shows that on the right tariff, people can have lower running costs of heat pumps compared to boilers.” …

“The worst imaginable is super high bills and a cold house, but it does happen,” Vince says. “I think Ed is just not looking far enough if he can’t see things like that. Some people are evangelical about heat pumps, and they don’t want to hear the truth.”

Why then would anyone choose to install a heat pump? “People buy heat pumps I think for lifestyle reasons,” Vince says. “There you go, I’ve said enough.”

Worth reading in full.