Dale Vince Slams Heat Pumps as Overhyped and Mis-Sold
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.
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When I lived in Brisbane I was a big fan of heat pumps. Ducted aircon let me sleep at night.
I’m a big fan of heat pumps too. Without fridges we’d never be able to keep food for as long as we do.
z…’HeatPump/Air-conditioning for cooling. Nice.
Most of the UK applications appear to be for Heating. So, a different animal that ne3ed some specifics as to location by the house. New builds can accomodate that but retro fitting to old homes, not so easy.
Plus of course the units have a short’ish life, especially if not maintained. Maybe 20 years.
Yes but the UK isn’t Brisbane, as my young cousins found out when they visited for a holiday and my dad took them to see Edinburgh Castle. They both had leggings on and wouldn’t get out of the car. ——-It was JULY. —–But as Billy Connoly once joked “There are only two seasons in Scotland, Winter and July”
Clearly he is trying to boost his energy (sic) company. Otherwise known as a subsidy harvesting business.
Comes in as a very poor second to Elon Musk in that regard.
Musk employs 145,000 people whereas Vince employs a max of 1,000. Musk also does useful things.
Ah, jobs.
Pity he doesn’t pay them with his own money. And I really don’t see anything he does as useful, sorry.
Why does he dress like a 12 year old girl?
Because he’s “cool”, like all those who dress in black from head to foot, and paint their interiors g-r-e-y…….
Not forgetting his terrorist scarf thingy.
It’s not GREY it’s Elephants Fart…..tsk
… tusk, surely?
Why does he always seem to be wearing a terrorist tea towel?
Dale, mate, we reached that conclusion many years ago. Heat pumps are overhyped and mis-sold.
But even if they weren’t, Dale, mate, spare a thought for us, the plebs, the uncool people, the great unwashed masses, those of us who don’t walk around wearing a keffiyeh scarf, those of us who just don’t have a spare £15,000 to spend on a piece of crap that doesn’t work just to feel good about themselves.
Thanks, mate.
A PINK keffiyeh at that.
Heat pumps are going as well as battery cars – ie not very. They might work in a house built for one but for the vast majority of our housing stock they are not suitable, especially as our damp climate in not ideal either.
Ground sourced heat pumps are probably less bad, but are monstrously expensive to install.
They are also very noisy
Powered by the most expensive electricity in the World.
If you want a laugh, ships are now finding that in port it is cheaper to run their diesel engines to generate electricity than plug in to the port supply. The down side is that as ever, it is our taxes that are being used to provide dockside supplies that are now being shunned.
No they are not a ‘lifestyle choice’, local building control FORCE you to install them in new builds. No choice. Heat pumps or solar panels and panels can only be sited in specific types of location. So usually it has to be heat pumps. Who is the getting the kickback from that piece of legislation, eh??
“Gas is a quarter of the price of electricity” but I hear these absurd climate change activists saying all the time the reason that we have the highest electricity prices is not because of all the renewables, it is because of the price of gas. So here is one of the chief activists admitting that is NOT TRUE. To see why it isn’t true go to the website of the wonderful Kathryn Porter or see her posts on X, and on here.
Yes – I’m no fan of Dale Vince in the slightest, however he is actually talking about facts here, based on the laws of physics.
Ed, as usual, is talking total bollocks. The question is, when is he going to get called out on it?
Is he transitioning into a lesbian radical feminist?
Dale Grifter Vince flying high on tax subsidies with his wanky scarf.
Thank you. I can never see a picture of him without thinking similar.
So what’s his next scam going to be?
Massively taxpayer-subsidised grifter attempts to deflect attention by pointing his finger at other taxpayer-subsidised grifters.
Are we supposed to be impressed?
My council built a demo estate of eco houses at a price premium paid by taxpayers, complete with top spec build spec, ASHP, solar panels, batteries (and not forgetting the housemartin nesting cavities). According to the blurb:
The homes will be low-energy and affordable to heat; part of an “energy education programme” linked to tenant wellbeing and financial position. The project is the pilot for the [town’s] Low Carbon Standard new build specification.
The Council has worked with {university] Sustainability Institute, part of [local] University, to design the highly energy-efficient properties and once complete, ongoing monitoring will measure the success of the design specification and keep track of the cost savings for tenants.
Nothing on the council website. I’ve had to resort to FOI to find out what’s transpired. Still waiting.
They did this in Leicester 30 years ago.
Three demo houses in a park to show the future!
Eventually the properties were abandoned and final demolished.
No mention of radiator size. A heat pump heats water to a far lower temperature than gas, meaning already existing radiators are far too small to heat a house with a heat pump.
Installing far larger radiators is not included in the costs of a heat pump, which is why you see reports of far larger electricity bills along with far colder houses.
I’ve also read some views that it’s not only the radiators that need to be replaced, but the entire pipe runs as well, as the bore may need to be different. I’m not an expert, so I don’t know if that’s true. Hopefully someone on here will know.
Changing the radiator size without upping the piping feeding it is not a good idea – it needs the flow / volume…
“As one of Britain’s foremost green energy grifters…”
Fixed the typo.
Coefficient of Performance is like mpg figures for cars, perfect, lab conditions.
Actual performance is determined by outside temperature relative to indoors and air moisture content. As the outdoor/indoor differential increases, the efficiency drops. High air moisture and cold temperatures (usual UK Winter) causes ice to form on the heat exchanger reducing efficiency, and requiring the unit to stop, reverse, and take heat from indoors to de-ice the exchanger.
Running costs do not include cost of hot water which requires a storage tank and immersion heater since heat pumps cannot supply hot water.
That’s before more insulation, change to pipework and radiators is considered.
Net Zero = replace what works efficiently with what doesn’t.
Dales’ latest subsidy grift is green hydrogen so he ain’t interested in heat pumps and so it suits him to slag them off although tbf they are cr*p for the most part
The “right tariff” is one that doesnt actually exist in the UK