Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, one of the UK’s biggest energy groups, said sales of solar panels had jumped 50 per cent after the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran pushed up oil and gas prices.

Jackson said there had been a “huge surge” in sales of solar panels and heat pumps and enquiries about electric vehicles and chargers so far this month compared with February.

He said UK households were “very likely” to face higher energy bills from July, when the price cap that currently protects millions of households is reset by the energy regulator Ofgem. While the company remained optimistic about the impact of the conflict, it was prepared for a “more severe” situation.

Global oil and gas prices have soared since the outbreak of the US-Iran war on February 28, which has disrupted energy production and transport in the Middle East. Rising energy prices can lead to higher costs for other goods globally, but the effect is often first felt at the petrol pump.

Jackson said the UK had experienced “more dramatic energy cost rises than we’re likely to see now” after the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022. Many households may be confused about how high their energy bills could be in three months’ time, a situation that is prompting families to start thinking about renewable energy.

He said customers were saying “look, we’ve got to do something about this”. Against this backdrop, sales of solar panels were up 50 per cent, heat pump sales were up 30 per cent, enquiries about electric vehicles were up more than a third and enquiries about chargers were up about a fifth.

The data is based on a comparison between February and the first three weeks of March. Jackson said month-on-month order and enquiry data would typically be flat.

Jackson also focused on the differences between the energy transition processes in China and Europe in the interview.

He was first asked about recent comments by Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, who compared China’s energy progress with Europe, saying Europe was “all talk and no action”.

Jackson said Europe was “tying itself in knots” with arguments about whether it was moving too fast or too slowly on green energy, as well as over North Sea drilling.

He said China, by contrast, was “getting on with it”, citing a report released last year by the CNPC Economics and Technology Research Institute that showed it would eliminate more petrol stations.

“They’re doing it because it gives them more and more resilience and more and more energy security in the face of crises in the Middle East and again in the global fossil fuel industry,” Jackson said.

Jackson dismissed the argument that increasing North Sea oil production would enhance the UK’s energy resilience.

He said it would have a “tiny impact”, adding that the fossil fuel industry would never have a lot of spare capacity, which was why prices “skyrocketed” when there was a shortage.

He said the most important thing was to reduce the UK’s electricity costs, which would enable more people to use electric vehicles and heat pumps.

While electric vehicles were once seen as an expensive option, he said the price gap between petrol and electric cars had narrowed and the second-hand market was emerging. The gap that had prevented low-income households from affording electric vehicles because of high prices was “disappearing”.