• Octopus Energy reports over 200,000 homeowners enquired about a heat pump in 2024.
• Miliband states they may never match gas on cost
• 60,000 installations in 2024 according to Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS).
• Government target of 600,000 by 2028 still far off.

Octopus Energy has reported over 200,000 homeowners enquiring about a heat pump in 2024, a 144 per cent increase from the previous year. Furthermore, installations rose 43 per cent last year, with data from the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) recording 60,000 certified installations of heat pumps in 2024.

Progress is accelerating, with half (49 per cent) of UK consumers wanting to invest in low-carbon heating solutions, a recent study from MCS revealed, and the £7,500 grant from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), places the cost of getting a heat pump on a par with a new gas boiler.

But the race is still to be won, with the growth needing to continue at twice this rate if the Government’s annual target of 600,000 new heat pump installations by 2028 is to be met.

To further drive down running costs, the government is currently considering moving environmental and social levies off electricity and making a quota (boiler tax) for boiler makers that will add costs to gas boiler installation. Currently it is far from clear whether costs of running heating from gas or heat pumps is better with so many different conditions within housing stock and regulatory tariffs.

Indeed, Ed Miliband, who ought to know, stating he would not ban gas boilers now when he could not guarantee heat pumps are cheaper during the Parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.

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