A war of words has erupted between energy providers after an Octopus Energy advert was banned for claiming that households could have a heat pump installed for as little as £500.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint against the Greg Jackson-run energy giant, ruling that not enough customers were eligible for the £500 offer for Octopus to be able to promote the price.

Under Competition and Markets Authority guidance, advertisements containing ‘from’ offers should reflect the price that “a significant proportion of consumers were likely to pay”.

In its ruling, which Octopus disputes, the ASA found that when the ad appeared in September Octopus was installing just 5.8 per cent of its heat pumps for at or below the £500 price promoted, considerably below the ASA’s 10 per cent threshold to make such a claim.

The advert promoting “installs from £500” ran predominantly on Facebook. It also claimed a government grant to encourage households to switch from a gas boiler to a heat pump “covers up to 90 per cent of the costs”.

“Replace your old broken boiler with an award-winning energy supplier and help stop our reliance on gas,” it added.

‘Breathtaking hypocrisy’

The ASA said it received two complaints about the advert, one of which came from the Energy and Utilities Alliance (EUA), a trade body which represents legacy gas providers like Centrica, and which has campaigned against the government’s heat pump subsidies.

A spokesperson for Octopus said: “This shows the breathtaking hypocrisy from these fossil fuel lobbyists. They logged this complaint against us, yet their biggest member – British Gas – also claims to install heat pumps from £499.”

“13.9% of all heat pumps sold by Octopus during the campaign were £500 or less, exceeding the ASA’s guideline of 10%. We’d like to see the figures for British Gas.”