An industry body has warned the expected increase in the energy price cap has blown a hole in the government’s ambitious heat pump rollout plan.

The Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA) has said the Heat and Buildings Strategy, which included a commitment to a wider scale rollout of heat pumps, is “dead in the water” in the current energy market environment.

The government aspires to have more than 600,000 heat pumps installed every year by 2028.

EUA Chief Executive Mike Foster said: “Research dictates a quarter of UK households across the UK have no savings, with some areas like the West Midlands at 42%.

“To continue to have a policy that asks people in the middle of an energy crisis to fit a heat pump costing as much as £10,000 is frankly perverse.”

“The government needs to urgently come up with a credible domestic heating strategy that gives us a roadmap to heat our homes and deliver net zero.”

A BEIS spokesperson told ELN: “These claims demonstrate a woeful misunderstanding of the situation. Heat pumps can help families move away from expensive fossil fuels when their gas boiler comes to need replacing and we’re reducing the costs of installing them with government grants and by slashing VAT to zero.

“In the immediate term, the government is also providing a £37 billion package to help households in these challenging times, including a payment of £400 towards energy bills and £1,200 to around eight million low-income households, and we are committing around £6.6 billion to support home energy efficiency upgrades this parliament.”