A few dozen people had gathered on the dancefloor of the nightclub in eastern Germany when Stefan Vetter took to the stage, his face chequered by neon lights that bounced off spinning disco balls, and flicked through PowerPoint slides of homeowners and their heaters. “We know that oil and gas are not getting cheaper in future,” he said. The audience of mostly retired men nodded slowly along.
Versions of this unusual scene played out in towns and cities across Germany in November in a weeklong PR blitz to promote heat pumps – a clean alternative to gas-burning boilers. But rather than lecture citizens about climate or carbon, Vetter, an adviser at the Saxon energy agency, talked up the cash they could save.
