Dale Vince: “Heat Pumps Have Been Mis-Sold”
Dale Vince, a leading Labour donor, has said that heat pumps don’t “save you money” because they’re inefficient and are being “mis-sold” by the Government. The Telegraph has more.
Heat pumps, which are promoted as a green alternative to traditional gas boilers, form a key part of Ed Miliband’s £15 billion energy plan, which was announced last week.
It aims to install solar panels, heat pumps, double glazing and insulation in five million low-income households, at a £5 billion cost to the taxpayer. Landlords also face a bill of up to £10,000 by 2030 under energy efficiency plans designed to push through upgrades.
But speaking to BBC Politics Live on Tuesday, Vince, the founder of energy firm Ecotricity, said: “I have been using heat pumps for about 20 years, so I know what they can do and what they can’t do.
“I do object to the fairly general narrative that they can save you money, because that is a very rare circumstance. You do need a well-insulated home just to break even.”
Vince, who has in the past funded activist groups including Just Stop Oil, said that to be cost-effective, a heat pump needs to have a coefficient of performance of at least four. Coefficiency performance is the measurement of how much heat is produced per unit of electricity used.
He claimed that for heat pumps in the UK, the average was just 2.8, which meant homeowners tended to see their bills increase by 30%.
Vince said: “That’s the reality. Against that, we have got the mis-selling, I think, of heat pumps.”
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said that households which installed a heat pump, solar panels and a battery could save as much as £550 a year compared with a gas boiler. A spokesman said that heat pumps can save households as much as £130 a year.
Analysis by the Energy Saving Trust found that those with a newer gas boiler may not see annual savings from installing an air source heat pump. The cost of installing a new heat pump has remained at approximately £13,000, although homeowners can benefit from government grants to reduce the upfront cost.
Worth reading in full.
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Why would any thinking person believe anything Vince says, even when what he’s saying is correct?
At least he’s saying it, and not just keeping schtum for “the cause”. Anything that undermines Miliwatt is to be welcomed after all.
I agree which suggests Vince has another agenda. He’s not biting the hand that feeds him for our benefit so he’s up to something.
It’s interesting that he’s saying this at the same time as he’s apparently dropped his electric airplane plans… perhaps he’s hit his head on something?
Perhaps someone has finally explained Breguet’s range equation to him.
He may well be up to something but what he is saying is TRUE. —–Heat Pumps are a heap of crap.
Dale Vince is objectionable. And he’s worth £125m because he was subsidised with money raised from electricity customers
And he also has a vey silly haircut.
You just know that anyone of his age who has a haircut like that is a knob.
Maybe it’s still too early for me or something, but is he starting to look more and more like Aunt Flo from Bod? (Those of a certain age will know what I’m on about)
He looks like an extra from the TV show Benidorm.
Vince has got it right, but for the wrong reason. The efficiency of heat pumps is their main selling point, they don’t work very well, and don’t cut bills for other reasons. Plus, they cost a lot, and can be very noisy.
Heat pumps are super efficient, they can produce 12kw of heat for around 4kw of electricity, because heat energy is transferred from outside to inside. The problem is that for a typical old house the heat loss at the target temperature (20C) is around 10kw in winter, hence it takes forever to heat a house from cold, so the heat pump has to operate continuously, whereas a hideously inefficient gas boiler can produce 25kw of heat, allowing it to operate only in the evening, and with the gas often turned off by the thermostat.
Gas boilers are not hideously inefficient, a condensing boiler with flue preheating can easily exceed 90% efficiency, perhaps 95%.
£13,000 (cost of buying and installing heat pump) / £130 (energy cost savings per year) is… let me see… tricky one this… 100 years. It takes 100 years to break even – but only if we ignore lost interest and/or opportunity costs. Oh, and that we have to replace the heat pump every 25 years or so.
It may be that the cost is shifted off the householder and on to general taxation but it does not change the 100 year calculation over all.
Does anyone have any figures or experience of how much maintenance on a heat pump costs as compared with a gas boiler? My guess is it won’t be cheaper.
Absolutely spot on – personally I’d say the 25 year life is very ambitious as well, not including the usual failing pumps, valves, control boards etc. These fail in the usual gas setup as well of course, but have to work harder with a heat pump running balls to the wall all day…
He looks more like a lesbian feminist every day.
It’s not just mis-selling, it’s coercion. If you build a new house, the local building control department requires you to install an alternative source of energy – solar panels made by slaves in China at great environmental cost or a noisy, expensive heat pump, which requires electricity from the grid to work.
What does he look like 🙂 Is he trying to prove he’s never grown up?
When even the rabid climate activists are telling you the heat pump is rubbish then they must truly be a heap of CRAP, and that is what they are. ——Just another heap of junk government try to coerce us into using so they can tick more pretend to save the planet boxes and get a pat on the back from their technocrat bosses at the UN and WEF.
Well, well, This is significant coming from Mr JSO and difficult for Red Ed to dispute. What nobody mentions in these discussions is that heat pumps don’t last for ever and the replacement cost will be borne in full by the home owner making the claim that they save money even more indefensible.
Separate subject, but this vile man wore a keffiyeh as he was interviewed for this – i.e showing support for Palestinian on our State Broadcaster on Holocaust Memorial Day. The BBC showed true form on this by declaring 3 times on news reports that the day commemorated the killing of 6 Million PEOPLE – thus erasing the Jews once again….. Can’t hate the BBC enough…..
Anyone who can do the sums can see that heat pumps cost much more to run and install. And anyone who has one already will know that in cold weather the house needs supplemental heating.
But despite this the government is already upgrading local incoming mains
to every house in my area of London. The roads and paved gardens are being dug up with traffic lights on many local roads, sometimes with no work being done.
The cost of one upgrade is around £3000 according to AI. There are 30 million houses in the UK. Total cost £90 billion. And that’s without the cost of extra insulation tanks, pipes, radiators and installing a heat pump. This will all be on the bill to consumers and taxpayers, unless it’s paid out of taxes for the low income homes that Mad Ed has just budgeted for.