Skip to content

Heating · Ireland

Heat Pump vs Oil or Gas Running Cost Comparison

A heat pump’s running cost is dominated by two numbers: the electricity price and the seasonal coefficient of performance. A poor design or leaky house can turn an attractive brochure figure into an expensive result. Every price here is yours to change, and the result names the figures it used. The fields open on Bord Gáis Energy’s published residential gas rate and a national kerosene average rather than on numbers chosen to look reasonable, and you can start from the fuel you actually buy — litres delivered, units billed — instead of guessing a demand band.

Interactive tool

Enter your details

An annual current-versus-heat-pump comparison built from a demand band or from the fuel you actually buy, with a percentage difference, an all-fuels table and a warning when the chosen SCOP looks optimistic.

Step 1 of 3Home
  1. Home, step 1
  2. Current system, step 2
  3. Heat pump, step 3

Home

Heat delivered to the rooms and hot water in a year, not the fuel bought to make it.

Optional, and far more accurate than the band above. Kerosene in litres, or gas and electricity in kWh, taken from a year of bills. Leave it at zero to use the band.

Insulation quality

Used to flag an efficiency figure the house could not support.

Nothing is saved. Your inputs are used only to calculate this result.

Personalised answer

Your result stays in view

Complete 3 short steps and this panel fills with your answer.

  • A direct answer to the question, in one line
  • The figures behind it, broken down
  • Practical next steps and the assumptions used

Evidence

The figures this tool uses

11.2c/kWh, editable
Opening mains gas unit rate
Bord Gáis Energy's published residential standard gas unit rate, 11.17c including VAT, unchanged since 1 May 2025. Eurostat puts the all-in Irish household gas price at 13.0c/kWh once the standing charge and every levy are spread over the year, which is the same figure seen from the other side. Use your own bill: this only decides where the field opens.
Bord Gáis Energy residential tariffs · checked 1 September 2026
€1.28/L, editable
Opening kerosene price
The national average for a 1,000-litre fill in August 2026. Kerosene is the most volatile figure on this page — it ran from about 96c to 137c a litre inside 2026 — so a delivery docket is worth far more here than any published average.
Home heating oil prices in Ireland · checked 1 September 2026
10.35 kWh
Energy in a litre of kerosene
Used to convert an oil delivery in litres into the useful heat a boiler actually delivers from it.
Verdanyx modelling assumption · checked 25 July 2026
26c/kWh, editable
Opening blended smart-tariff rate for the heat pump
Only the figure the field opens on. Smart tariffs differ too much for one blended average to describe them, and a real smart tariff's day rate is usually higher than a standard one, so the rate is yours to enter and the result names the figure it used.
Verdanyx modelling assumption · checked 30 August 2026
3.7
Mid-range seasonal efficiency for a well-designed system
Units of heat per unit of electricity averaged over a year. Take it from the installer's design rather than the brochure — the figure a poor design achieves is much lower.
SEAI heat pump guidance · checked 25 July 2026

Before you begin

What affects heat-pump running costs

  • Use annual fuel consumption or a BER advisory report to choose heat demand where possible.

  • Do not use a product laboratory COP as the expected seasonal COP.

  • For a smart tariff, take the rates and the hours from the tariff’s own price list rather than from a headline night rate. What decides the blend is how much of the heating actually lands in the cheap window, which a scheduled heat pump can control and an on-demand one largely cannot.

Reading the answer

Understanding your heating-cost comparison

A cheaper result is only protected if the installed system actually achieves the assumed SCOP.

Running cost excludes the capital cost, grants, finance and maintenance.

Boundaries

Assumptions and limitations

Working assumptions

  • Kerosene contains 10.35 kWh per litre.
  • The gas and kerosene fields open on published national figures and are yours to overwrite. Both are volumetric prices including VAT, so they are the same kind of number as the electricity rate and the three fuels can be compared directly.
  • Heat-pump useful-heat cost equals electricity rate divided by SCOP.
  • Smart-tariff running cost uses the blended rate you enter, not a maintained tariff.
  • Standing charges are excluded across fuels.

Where to be careful

  • Emitter sizing, flow temperature, weather compensation and commissioning strongly affect real performance.
  • A poorly insulated house may need insulation and draught-proofing work before a heat pump is suitable.

Worked example

The same question, answered end to end

A house needing 14,000 kWh of heat a year, currently on kerosene at €1.28 a litre through an 80%-efficient boiler, considering a heat pump at SCOP 3.7 on a 36c unit rate.

What was entered

  • 14,000 kWh of useful heat a year — heat delivered to the rooms and hot water, not fuel bought.
  • Kerosene at €1.28 a litre, through a boiler running at 80% over the year.
  • Electricity at 36c per kWh, and a designed SCOP of 3.7.
  • Reasonable but not excellent insulation.

How it is worked out

  1. A litre of kerosene holds 10.35 kWh, so €1.28 buys 10.35 kWh of fuel — about 12.4c per kWh of fuel.

  2. At 80% boiler efficiency only 8.28 kWh of that reaches the rooms, so useful heat costs about 15.5c per kWh.

  3. 14,000 kWh of useful heat at 15.5c is about €2,164 a year on oil.

  4. A heat pump at SCOP 3.7 delivers 3.7 kWh of heat per kWh of electricity, so 36c buys 3.7 kWh — about 9.7c per useful kWh.

  5. 14,000 kWh at 9.7c is about €1,362, and the difference is the annual saving.

What the tool returns

Current heating
€2,164/year
Heat pump
€1,362/year
Annual difference
€802 saved
Heat-pump cost per useful kWh
9.7c/kWh

Common questions

Questions about this tool

What is SCOP?

SCOP is seasonal heat delivered divided by electricity used. A SCOP of 3.5 means roughly 3.5 kWh of heat per kWh of electricity over the season.

Can a heat pump be dearer than gas?

Yes. With a low SCOP and an expensive electricity tariff it can match or exceed efficient mains-gas heating.

Maintenance

What has changed in this tool

  1. 1 September 2026

    Version 2026-09-01.1

    The two fuel prices this comparison turns on are now sourced and published. Mains gas opened at 7.5c/kWh, which is the energy-and-supply component of an Irish gas price rather than a bill rate: it left out network costs, carbon tax and VAT, and understated a kWh of gas by a third. Kerosene opened at €1.10 a litre after a year in which it averaged €1.28. Both were undisclosed, and between them they decided the verdict.

  2. 30 August 2026

    Version 2026-08-30.1

    The smart-tariff option no longer prices the heat pump at a fixed 26c/kWh. Turning it on now asks for the blended rate that tariff actually averages over a heating season, with 26c kept only as the figure the field opens on, and the result names the rate it used.

  3. 25 July 2026

    Version 2026-07-25.1

    Heat demand can now be derived from what a household actually buys. Picking one of four bands was the largest source of error in the result, and most people know their oil deliveries or their gas bill far better than they know their kWh of useful heat.