Now at the outset let me declare that I have an electric induction hob and electric oven and they are both great, a world away from the electric ring hobs. So, I’m not anti-electric cooking, I just want to flag up some missing elements to the debate around domestic heat decarbonisation in order to have those conversations.

From what I can find, around 60 per cent of UK homes use gas hobs and 40 per cent gas ovens, so it’s a large chunk of the population and we should talk about this. Looking at the available data, electric ovens and hobs are more “efficient” than their gas counterparts, but nowhere near the differential between a gas boiler and a heat pump. We are talking in the region of 25-40 per cent more efficient, but with electric unit prices being four times higher than gas, it means cooking on gas is cheaper.

Now we aren’t talking huge sums, we use relatively little energy cooking compared to heating, perhaps that’s why we don’t talk about it. The savings are likely to be in the region of £30 to £50 a year from using gas, with electric cooking likely to cost about £100 a year.

But if we electrify heat, then why would half the population want to use gas to cook? They would be paying a standing charge twice the amount of the value of gas they use. So, the assumption is, households would switch to electric cooking too.

This means replacement of appliances and their fitting. I’ve done some research, looked at trader websites and reckon that it will cost about £1000 to replace your gas oven and hob and replace with electric options. And your energy bills would go up as I mentioned earlier.

So what, it’s saving the planet! Well, it matters because if you add these costs into the economics of heat pumps replacing gas boilers, then the maths becomes even more difficult to justify the switch. I’m not saying don’t do it, just that we can’t ignore cooking when it comes to adding up the net zero books.