Octopus launches £500 air con add-on for its heat pumps — but is it actually more affordable than fitting air conditioning?

This week, Octopus announced its Cosy Cooler, an add on that adapts its Cosy heat pump into a home cooling system.

After the swelteringly hot summer that saw the best portable air conditioners sell out and waiting lists for fitted air conditioning expand, Octopus' latest innovation taps into the demand for maintaining a comfortable environment at home all year-round.

Available in 2027, the portable Cosy Cooler is about the size of a tall kitchen bin, at just over 72cm tall, weighs around 28kgs, and is designed to plug directly into radiator pipework to circulate chilled water through your home's heating system. Installation would use existing pipework, not involve any significant alterations, an is expected to only take around three hours.

If you're not convinced that a heat pump can cool your home via chilled water in your radiators, the good news is that the Cosy Cooler will also draw in warm indoor air, cool it across a built-in heat exchanger, and quietly circulate the chilled air into the room. It has the added bonus of not needing to be vented outside, like a portable air conditioner.

While the Cosy Cooler is expected to have a price tag of £500-600, which is akin to the price of a portable air conditioner and considerably less than the cost of installing fitted air conditioning, there is one major caveat to that — you need to have the Cosy heat pump first. According to Octopus, its typical heat pump price is £4,064 (and that's after any grant under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme has been applied).

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme currently offers up to £9,000 towards upgrading to a heat pump, although it has been reported that the Autumn Statement at the end of October 2026 will see these subsidies cut.

And as part of the heat pump installation, you may also have to upgrade the radiators in your home, or even your central heating pipework, which will further add to the cost.

If you already have a Cosy heat pump, and are considering air conditioning, the Cosy Cooler will absolutely be a bargain in comparison to adding a fitted air conditioning system.

However, if you don't have the Cosy heat pump, then fitted air conditioning could actually be the more cost-effective option, once you add up the costs of getting a heat pump installed in the first place.

If you are considering installing a heat pump anyway, the Cosy Cooler add-on could be well worth adding into the mix.

While the Cosy Cooler won't be available to the general public until next year, the energy supplier is looking for additional testers to try it out before then. If you are keen to test it before everyone else and you have a Cosy heat pump and compatible radiators, and then fill out this form.