Scotland is warming to the heat pump. Sales are improving, with 5,700 units put in this year so far, up a third on the same period last year. Collectively, they are turning power created by Scotland’s notorious cold wind into warm radiators and toasty hot baths.

In total, there are nearly 42,000 certified heat pumps whirring away in Scotland, according to quality assurance body the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS).

Demand is growing, but it’s nowhere near where the Scottish Government wants it to be.

If heat pump installations reached five, then six figures, it would dramatically reduce carbon emissions – a giant step towards Scotland’s 2045 net zero target – cut dependency on imported fuel, and for many households, lower energy bills.

But we are miles off achieving that. Labour in Westminster and the SNP at Holyrood have it in their power to catapult Britain up the European heat pump league table, but they’ll have to work together to do it.

Public confidence in the technology is growing, after years of angsty and often misinformed debate. Increasingly people understand that heat pumps won’t leave you shivering in penury and needing to wear ear defenders every time you put out the recycling, as per some hysterical comment.

Read more Rebecca McQuillan

What’s made the real difference to uptake, though, is the generous cash incentives to cover installation costs.

You get a £7,500 Scottish Government grant – £9,000 in rural areas – plus up to £7,500 more as an optional interest-free loan, with further generous help available for insulation. In some properties, this means putting in a heat pump will cost roughly the same as replacing a gas boiler. In others it will cost more (size of home and degree of insulation makes a difference), but many people also find it’s cheaper to run than gas.

That’s been our experience. We’ve had an air source heat pump for more than two years, having added extra insulation to make our home suitable. The heat pump keeps the house warm, the water hot and saves us money.

But how long in this era of budgetary constraint will those grants and loans be available? And what impact would it have on great energy transition if they were cut?

Potentially a serious one, international evidence suggests, which should make both the Chancellor and the Scottish finance secretary pause with the paring knife.

Continental Europe has embraced heat pumps. To scotch two myths straight out: yes they do work in cold temperatures (there are more per capita in Scandinavia than anywhere else, with Norway top of the league) and they are not new, unproven tech (Switzerland has been installing them since the 1930s).

There are now 24m heat pumps across Europe, according to the European Heat Pump Association, preventing emissions equivalent to taking 7.5m cars off the road. The UK is a laggard with only around 250,000, but France has six million, Italy 4.1m and Norway (population 5.5m) has 1.6 million.

Air source heat pump installers Air source heat pump installers (Image: Andrew Aitchison) The rate of heat pump growth in Europe had increased steadily for a decade, but last year it dipped. Interest rates and inflation in some countries had an impact, but two recurring problems stand out.

One is inconsistent government policy. Take away subsidies and unsurprisingly you deter uptake. In Italy, the government of hard-right Prime Minister Georgia Meloni has slashed government support for renewable heating systems to a minimum, in response to abuses of the previous scheme. New heat pump installations have fallen sharply in response.

But there’s something else – high electricity prices compared to gas. The UK has the highest electricity prices in Europe. Scotland produces the equivalent of 113 per cent of its energy needs from renewables, and the generation costs are low, but the consumer price of this clean power is driven up because it’s pegged to the price of much more costly electricity produced in gas-fired power stations.

In addition, social and environmental levies are loaded onto electricity, not gas prices.

All this is actively driving fuel poverty.

So what needs to happen to turn Scotland into a heat pump hot spot like Norway? Clearly, the Scottish Government has to maintain its renewable heating grants and loans. If they slashed them, it would be bye bye to their net zero target, which cannot be met without decarbonising heating (15 per cent of national emissions come from domestic heating).

The Scottish Greens have an opportunity here to show they are still relevant after their defenestration by the former First Minister. Scottish ministers need their support to get a budget through; the Scottish Greens can make the continuation of renewable heating grants and loans a condition of that support.

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Just as urgently, though, Labour needs to act on the price of electricity, which is deterring people from switching to heat pumps from gas.

Reforming the model for setting the price of electricity is a priority. If Labour can bring down the price of power, it will guarantee all heat pump users cheaper energy bills.

A review of energy pricing was launched by the last government but this one must act. It would be ludicrous for Ed Miliband and Sir Keir Starmer to proclaim a green energy revolution without tackling the UK’s artificially high electricity price.

While they’re at it, they need to look at the social and environmental levies, to pay for things like the subsidies for households in fuel poverty and early investment in renewables projects, which are currently lumped into electricity bills. Some campaigners argue these should be funded from general taxation to help tackle fuel poverty and incentivise the uptake of heat pumps. With the government struggling to find money that might be a tall order, but a first step might be sharing the cost across gas and electricity bills.

The governments of John Swinney and Keir Starmer have both talked up their willingness to work together. Well here’s the perfect project. Working in tandem to maintain support for home renewable technology and working together with the sector to cut the cost of electricity: that could help turn Scotland, like Norway, into one of the heat pump capitals of the world.

Rebecca McQuillan is a freelance journalist specialising in politics and Scottish affairs. She can be found on X at @BecMcQ