Revealed: Media Blitz Against Heat Pumps Funded by Gas Lobby Group

Gas-linked companies’ attack on electric heating confuses consumers and leaves UK trailing behind Europe, say experts
Phoebe Cooke headshot - credit Laura King Photography
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Series: Gas Lock-in
A 2023 UK story focused on a trade association that hired a PR company to help generate hundreds of headlines in national media on energy policy - including dozens opposing heat pumps. Credit: Andy Carter.

An energy trade association that represents and promotes gas boilers and manufacturers is behind a barrage of negative press attacking heat pumps, DeSmog has learned.

Over the past two years, the Energy and Utilities Association (EUA) has paid a public affairs firm to generate hundreds of articles and interviews to lobby the UK government on energy policy.

The PR campaign subjects heat pumps to intense criticism. Powered by electricity, heat pumps are currently set to play a key role in decarbonising heating and replacing gas boilers, which heat around 85 percent of Britainโ€™s homes and account for 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions nationwide.

Negative stories about electric heat pumps have featured in outlets such as The Sun, Telegraph and The Express, in which damning headlines dub the technology โ€œSoviet-styleโ€, โ€œfinancially irrationalโ€ as well as โ€œcostly and noisyโ€. Broadcast media has amplified similar messages on BBC 2โ€™s Newsnight, LBC, TalkTV and GB News.

The company driving this coverage is the Birmingham-based WPR Agency, which was hired by the EUA to deliver an โ€œintegrated PR and social media campaignโ€ to โ€œhelp change the direction of government policyโ€.

On its website WPR said it aimed to โ€œspark outrageโ€ around heat pumps. This wording, along with other phrases, has since been altered to read “spark conversations” following a request for comment on this article from DeSmog.

The group has since lobbied to delay government plans to ramp up heat pump installation targets in a consultation that closed in June.

WPRโ€™s campaign also explicitly promotes hydrogen as a viable fuel for domestic heating. While favoured by the gas and installers industry as it can flow along existing infrastructure, neither the UNโ€™s leading climate body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or 32 recently reviewed independent studies see a major role for hydrogen in decarbonizing homes.

Much of the media coverage about heat pumps features Mike Foster, a former Labour MP and the chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Association trade body. According to the group, its members  carry out around 98 percent of the UKโ€™s heating installations. The vast majority of these are for gas boilers, though some of its members have also branched out into heat pumps.

WPR has sought to enhance both the image of Foster and EUA. The agency takes credit on its website for 32 media hits criticising heat pumps since June 2021 (described as a โ€˜snapshotโ€™ of results by the firm). Foster is quoted in 90 percent of this coverage.

According to DeSmogโ€™s analysis of google news โ€“ taking in tabloids, broadsheets, broadcast media and select trade press โ€“ this would mean the PR agency has generated two thirds of the high-profile negative content published about heat pumps in the 23 months to April 2023.

With targets now set for the phase-out of gas boilers in countries across Europe, in recent years, gas companies in the UK and the EU have lobbied hard for hydrogen over heat pumps โ€“ the model which offers the least disruption to their business model.

โ€œThe people who are pushing for hydrogen heating arenโ€™t genuinely interested in tackling climate breakdown โ€“ theyโ€™re looking for a lifeline for the gas industry,โ€ says Sarah Becker of Global Witness. โ€œThey arenโ€™t just talking up a false climate solution, theyโ€™re also working hard to undermine the right ones,โ€ she adds. โ€œHeat pumps will play an essential role in reducing our fossil fuel dependence and making our homes and buildings renewables-ready.โ€

Energy expert Professor Martin Freer puts the UKโ€™s โ€˜glacialโ€™ uptake of heat pumps โ€“ the lowest in Europe โ€“ in part down to a lack of clarity for consumers. โ€œThe homeowner is confused by the mixed messages from government, industry and the sector around which low-carbon heating solution is best,โ€ says the director of the Birmingham Energy Institute. โ€œThis same confusion does not exist in countries such as Italy and Poland and even France, Germany or the Netherlands.โ€

Responding on behalf of WPR, the lawyer Jonathan Coad said hydrogen was โ€œan entirely viable means of providing an โ€˜efficient and low-carbon heating alternativeโ€™ to gas boilersโ€, stating that WPR was simply โ€œraising the disadvantages of heat pumps, about which scientific and ecological opinion is clearly dividedโ€. 

Foster said: โ€œThere is no anti-heat pump campaign funded by EUAโ€, adding that the WPR โ€œmerely provides outsourced media support for our organisationโ€. He said neither he nor the EUA are outright opposed to heat pumps and support โ€œthe right appliance for the right homeโ€.

Birmingham-based WPR Agency was hired by the Energy & Utilities Alliance to help change government policy on domestic heating and to ‘spark outrage’ around heat pumps, according to archived screenshots of the site.

Future of Heat

In order to hit national climate targets and slow global heating, governments need to slash greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, which account for over a third of the EUโ€™s energy consumption.

UK government research has found heat pumps to be three times as energy efficient as gas boilers, and plans to install 600,000 of the devices per year by 2028.

The future of hydrogen in heating homes in the UK is less assured. The House of Commonsโ€™ Science and Technology Select Committee has determined that low carbon hydrogen will at best have a limited role in heating homes.

This echoes the view of the 2022 report from the IPCC โ€“ which cited over 18,000 studies. It saw at best โ€œa very modest role for hydrogenโ€ in buildings by 2050, citing a โ€œmuch higher delivered cost of heatโ€ compared to heat pumps, along with safety and performance concerns associated with hydrogen.

Hydrogen can be made in a number of ways โ€“ some of which are more polluting than others. โ€œGreen hydrogenโ€ is made from solar and wind power, while โ€œblue hydrogenโ€ is made using natural gas, in a process that involves capturing and storing methaneโ€™s carbon dioxide emissions (CCS), however this technology was described as โ€œminimal or non-existentโ€ in a 2021 report by Manchester Universityโ€™s Tyndall Centre. 

While green hydrogen is widely accepted as necessary for decarbonising heavy industry and some other sectors โ€“ where greenhouse gas emissions are harder to remove โ€“ it is not considered viable for heating homes. 

A peer-reviewed assessment of over 30 independent studies in 2022, concluded that hydrogen use in domestic heating is inefficient, costly and resource-intensive compared to other low-carbon options such as heat pumps.

โ€œGreen hydrogen will always be 2 to 3 times more expensive, and this will always be the case independent of any technology improvements. Itโ€™s fundamental physics,โ€ explains Simon Roberts, Honorary Professor  at Brunel University’s Resource Efficient Future Cities Research Centre. โ€œHydrogen should only be considered where there is no alternative. For example, long distance, heavy transport, such as ships, large planes and some trucks.

Another hitch with hydrogen is that there may simply not be enough green hydrogen available due to the energy required to make it. It would require the installation of 2 to 3 times more renewable energy, which could be better used elsewhere. 

โ€œNot only is this a high expense but expansion of renewable energy generation wonโ€™t be able to keep up with the switch from fossil fuels, additional demand of electric vehicles and additional demand of hydrogen production,โ€ Roberts says.

The government is due to announce a hydrogen village trial in Redcar, North Yorkshire later this year to assess whether to introduce hydrogen blending โ€“ a mix of green hydrogen and gas โ€“ in the National Grid from 2026. The Redcar trial has proved controversial after a gas companyโ€™s PR offensive in the town, documented by DeSmog, and concerns over safety and environmental damage. Hydrogen trials due in Whitby, Cheshire have been cancelled in the face of local opposition.

This article in the Daily Express, which quotes EUA chief executive Mike Foster, is cited by WPR Agency as an example of its successful EUA-funded campaign.

โ€˜Financially Irrationalโ€™

Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus on the cheapest, most efficient route to decarbonisation of home heating, the EUA holds a different view. 

The WPRโ€™s campaign blurb claimed it โ€œtook on the heat pump lobby by highlighting the high installation cost and disruption of heat pumpsโ€, which it said had โ€œbecome increasingly focused on heat pumps to the detriment of other technologies and fuel choices, specifically hydrogen.โ€

After DeSmog approached WPR for comment, the wording was edited on the companyโ€™s site. The original page, archived by DeSmog, stated โ€œtook on the heat pump lobbyโ€, which was changed to โ€œchallenged the prevailing narrativeโ€ while the phrase โ€œspark outrageโ€ was softened to โ€œspark conversationsโ€.

The PR campaign run by WPR Agency has exploited genuine concerns around the high upfront cost of heat pumps to generate consistently negative headlines, while boosting the profile of hydrogen blending in the energy mix โ€“ without raising any concerns or drawbacks associated with the fuel.

This technique of โ€œpalteringโ€ โ€“ using statements that are technically true but omit crucial information and are therefore misleading โ€“ are a well used tactic of anti-environmental movements in the US. These โ€œdelayโ€ arguments on climate change often focus on economic cost and appeals to social justice.

Foster, who represented the constituency of Worcester from 1997 to 2010, is quoted in dozens of trade and national media titles criticising the technology.

After energy bills rocketed in the wake of Russiaโ€™s invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Foster labelled the act of buying a heat pump as โ€œfinancially irrationalโ€ in a paid-for opinion piece in Politics.co.uk, a publication targeted at Westminster insiders.

Foster refers repeatedly on Twitter to the โ€œheat pump cultโ€. In an op-ed for The Telegraph in January (โ€˜Heat pumps for allโ€™ is a cult that the Government should abandon), he argues that for โ€œthe vast majority of homes, already on the gas grid, keeping your boiler and changing the gas to hydrogen, is the most feasible way forwardโ€.

In an interview with The Express in February this year, he described the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which awards a ยฃ5,000 grant to heat pump buyers, as a โ€œsick dogโ€ that should be โ€œput downโ€.

The governmentโ€™s rollout of the devices so far has been widely viewed as chaotic, with widespread criticism of the low uptake of the scheme and inadequate subsidies.

Heat pumps perform best when they are installed in well-insulated homes, which prevents warm air from leaking through cracks, gaps and cavities. The government is lagging behind on its insulation scheme, which Fuel poverty charity National Energy Action in April characterises as slow and poorly targeted. 

But critics say concerns over heat-pump schemes have been misused. Despite subsidies that are higher than those awarded in many European countries, the UK installed just 60,000 in 2022 compared to 200,000 in Poland and Italy, according to Martin Freer.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP, said that the UK governmentโ€™s roll-out of heat pumps had been โ€œshambolic enoughโ€ without unnecessary media attention from a trade association, funded by members with an interest in preserving the status quo.

โ€œWhatโ€™s certainly not needed is the dirty fossil fuel lobby further undermining the credibility of heat pumps in favour of gas-powered hydrogen, simply to allow the continued use of climate-wrecking fossil fuels,โ€ Lucas told DeSmog. 

WPR has run a number of overlapping campaigns for the EUA, its various divisions and members.
For the EUA trade associationโ€™s heating and hotwater division (โ€œHeating & Hotwater Industry Councilโ€, or HHIC) the PR agency promoted โ€˜hybrid heat pumpsโ€™ for domestic heating โ€“ air source heat pumps that run alongside gas boilers โ€“ as part of its 2021 โ€œHeating up to Net Zeroโ€ campaign. A briefing produced by members called on the government to promote hybrid heat pumps, which are heavily promoted by the gas industry as less carbon intensive than gas boiler, but experts say only provide a further way to prolong the use of planet-heating gas.

The WPR was also hired by the EUA and HHIC to generate coverage for its โ€˜Heat Pump Installer Shortageโ€™ campaign, for which it landed stories in the Telegraph and City AM.

WPR โ€“ which also includes Baxi, Worcester Bosch and Cadent among its clients โ€“ also ran an additional campaign on behalf of the EUA, titled Moving the Dial on Hydrogen, which helped to produce the โ€˜Too Close To Homeโ€™ briefing. The document drew attention to the high price of heat pumps, critiqued long installation times, and polled high support for โ€˜low carbon gas boilersโ€™, including those partly powered by hydrogen. According to WPR, the hydrogen campaign produced โ€œnational hitsโ€ in mainstream media with a Twitter campaign reaching the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Kwasi Kwarteng, the former business and energy secretary.

This EUA opinion piece quoting CEO Mike Foster appeared on politics.co.uk in March 2022. The website is targeted at Westminster insiders.

โ€˜Technology Agnosticโ€™  

The EUA is made up of over 280 members active in the UKโ€™s energy trade sector, with seven umbrella divisions representing the heating, hot water, utility, gas vehicle, and radiator industries.  The organisation says it โ€œacts on its membersโ€™ behalf to shape the UKโ€™s decarbonisation policy whilst being mindful of affordability and security of supplyโ€.

โ€œBased on its name,  you might think the Energy and Utilities Alliance represents both electricity and gas utilities, but you would be wrong,โ€ Michael Liebreich, energy analyst and founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, told DeSmog. โ€œIt’s a gas industry association, as you can see from its list of members.โ€

EUAโ€™s members include some of the gas industryโ€™s biggest names. Gas distribution companies SGN, Northern Gas Networks, Wales and West Utilities and Cadent โ€“ the UKโ€™s largest gas distributor with 11 million customers. All these distributors advocate for the blending of hydrogen into the UK gas grid.

Also present is National Gas, the owner of Britainโ€™s gas network. On its website, the company โ€“ which owns and operates the UKโ€™s 7,600km-long network of gas pipelines and maintains seven million gas meters โ€“ expresses its ambition to deliver a โ€œhydrogen backboneโ€ for Britain.

Boilermakers Worcester Bosch and Baxi, who are also members, both promote and market โ€œhydrogen-readyโ€ boilers as a โ€œcarbon-free fuel sourceโ€ while Vaillant โ€“ which sells boilers, as well as other heating systems โ€“ backs hydrogen as โ€œthe future fuel for boilersโ€.

While some of the EUAโ€™s member companies, including Baxi, Valliant and Wolseley, also provide heat pumps, these make up a tiny fraction of their current business.

The UKโ€™s primary electricity distribution networks โ€“ including UK Power Networks and Northern Power Grid โ€“ are notably absent from the membership, along with electricity transmission operator National Grid. 

The EUA appears to back hydrogen in its policy strategy, sponsorship and on its website. The association sponsors the prestigious Institution of Gas Engineer and Managersโ€™ annual gas industry awards and is also a co-sponsor of the cross-party informal parliamentary group (APPG) for hydrogen, alongside EUA members Baxi, Bosch and Cadent.

The EUA champions hydrogen as a viable domestic fuel in reports, articles and events. The association enthusiastically promoted Hydrogen Week in February, and its most recent manifesto in 2019 listed โ€œGreening the gas grid with the aim of 99 percent hydrogen before 2050โ€ as a top priority.

On the EUAโ€™s website, multiple articles promote the blending of hydrogen with gas for home heating, and Foster regularly blogs on the subject. Foster acknowledges a limited role for heat pumps in just one post, in October 2021, for homes that already run solely on electricity.

Foster told DeSmog that both he and the EUA had a โ€œtechnology agnosticโ€ approach. โ€œWe support the right appliance for the right home, some will be heat pumps, some connected to heat networks and we believe some connected to a hydrogen gas network,โ€ he told DeSmog.

Any suggestion that the organisation is anti-heat pump is โ€œwide of the mark, indeed outright wrongโ€, he said.

But the only EUA-sponsored stories that WPR has chosen to highlight on its site are negative stories about heat pumps.

Hydrogen Champion

In April, Foster was on seen canvassing for Worcesterโ€™s Labour parliamentary candidate, Tom Collins โ€“ who is also the hydrogen development lead at Worcester Bosch, one of the EUAโ€™s members.

When asked by DeSmog if this presented a conflict of interest, Foster told DeSmog that as a Labour Party member of 40 years โ€œit would be strange if I did not support his election campaignโ€.

As well as closely following the events and activities of the Hydrogen APPG, Foster has spoken at the all-party parliamentary group for Energy Costs, including at an event in March on โ€œdecarbonising heatโ€.

In late April Foster attended a meeting with Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Grant Shapps along with MPs Emma Hardy, Karl Turner and Shaun Edwards, the chief executive of Ideal Heating. A government spokesperson said the meeting was โ€œto discuss the clean heat market mechanism and progress regarding the installation of heat pumpsโ€.

Foster told DeSmog the meeting was โ€œat the invitation of the three Hull Labour MPs, who wanted to represent their GMB unionised workforce, given my expertise in the heating area, in a local issueโ€.

The meeting took place during a consultation on a proposed mechanism to incentivise heat pumps, which closed June 8. In it, the government sets out a mandate for the UKโ€™s fossil fuel boiler manufacturers to sell a rising proportion of heat pumps from next year.

A leaked draft response seen by DeSmog that was submitted by the EUA body, the Heating and Hotwater Industry Council, proposes delaying the mechanism until 2026. The plans were โ€œmisguidedโ€, the response stated, and would โ€œpush UK manufacturers out of the UK and directly lead to significant job lossesโ€.

Foster told DeSmog that it would be โ€œperverseโ€ for the EUA to fund an anti-heat pump campaign. He added that he authorised heat pump installations in his capacity as chair of Affordable Warmth Solutions โ€“ a company that administers a government energy support fund โ€“ and also through the EUA itself. 

โ€œWe support a range of technologies โ€“ heat pumps, heat networks and hydrogen and yes, we campaign for that outcome for the consumer, who we believe should have a choice about future home heating,โ€ he said.

Despite the prohibitive cost of heat pumps in the UK (an average of ยฃ10,000), the number of homes installing one has grown by around 10 percent month-on-month, according to new research published in early May by the energy and climate think tank Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).

Writing in the New Statesman in February this year, the analyst Jan Rosenow, director of European programs at the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) of clean energy experts, identified three ingredients to fix the UKโ€™s heat pump problem: reform the tax system to better reward environmentally friendly options, set clear dates for fossil fuel phase out to provide market certainty and spark investment โ€“ and communicate better about heat pumps and how they work.

Responding to DeSmogโ€™s findings, Michael Liebreich said: โ€œI would love to know the reasons for Mike Fosterโ€™s relentless boosting of hydrogen โ€“ is it because his members are pushing him in that direction? 

โ€œNone of his campaigns will have the slightest impact on the eventual outcome; as Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman said: โ€œFor a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.โ€

But the delay will cost the climate dearly. โ€œEvery year of confusion and delay is a year Fosterโ€™s members donโ€™t have to invest in new business models,โ€ reflects Michael Liebreich. โ€œAnd if hydrogen heating doesn’t work โ€“ which of course it wonโ€™t โ€“ so be it, and shame about the planet.โ€

DeSmog co-published a version of this article with The Guardian

Editing by Hazel Healy

Additional research by Michaela Herrmann and Joey Grostern

Phoebe Cooke headshot - credit Laura King Photography
Phoebe joined DeSmog in 2020. She is currently co-deputy editor and was previously the organisation's Senior Reporter.

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