The government’s flagship heat pump scheme has been branded an “embarrassment” after missing its installation target.

Fewer than 10,000 pumps have been installed in England and Wales during the first year of the programme, which gives households money to pay for the pumps as part of net-zero efforts to reduce dependency on gas.

The scheme had a budget of £150m to fund 30,000 heat pumps, but just £60m worth of vouchers were given out.

Ofgem said it received 15,768 applications, issued 11,996 vouchers and 9,981 were redeemed.

Mike Foster, CEO of the trade body the Energy and Utilities Alliance, said: “It takes a certain type of genius to fail to give away £150m of taxpayers’ money and this wretched scheme looks like it has done just that.

“When will the government actually listen to the people, the majority of whom simply cannot afford a heat pump, subsidised or not?

“The scheme is simply a taxpayer handout to those who don’t need it. It does little for carbon saving compared to investment on insulation.

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“It does not help people keep bills low. It takes from the poor to give to the wealthy and it is an embarrassment of a policy.”

The figures have cast doubt on the government’s target of 600,000 installations of heat pumps per year by 2028.

Through the scheme, households are given £5,000 vouchers to cover part of the cost of replacing fossil fuel heating systems – including oil, gas or electric – with a heat pump or biomass boiler.

Ministers have previously said this will cut emissions and reduce the UK’s dependency on fossil fuels, mitigating some of its exposure to global price spikes in gas.

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The grants were available from April 2022, which means people installing a heat pump will pay a similar amount to those installing traditional gas boilers.

While a replacement gas boiler can cost around £1,000 to £3,000, an air source heat pump can cost between £7,000 and £14,000.

What is a heat pump?

A heat pump captures heat from outside and moves it into your home.

It uses electricity to do this, however, the quantity of heat delivered into your home is much greater than the quantity of electricity used to power the system.

As a heat pump captures heat that is already present in the environment, the system itself does not burn any fuel and therefore emits no carbon dioxide.

Sky News has contacted the government for comment.

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