- You can now get a £7,500 heat pump grant
- The average home will be able to save £4,891 over 20 years
- But only 60,000 homes will benefit in the next three years
Homeowners in England and Wales can get £7,500 off the cost of a new air (ASHP) or ground source heat pump, thanks to the government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme. Under the scheme, you can get (GSHP) £5,000 for a new biomass boiler.
However, because the scheme is currently receiving a relatively small £450 million, only 60,000 homes can take advantage of the grant over its first three years.
That’s despite the Climate Change Committee (CCC) saying the UK needs to install 3.3 million heat pumps in existing homes by 2030 to reach net zero.
If you’re interested in receiving a free quote for an air source heat pump, simply pop your details in this form and our installers will get back to you.
How does the scheme work?
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme will operate on a “first-come, first-served basis,” with customers having to rush to register their interest with air or ground source heat pump installers.
Installers will then apply for the £7,500 grant on behalf of customers and remove that amount from the heat pump’s price.
This makes the grant simpler for homeowners than the now-defunct Green Homes Grant, which requires you to apply for energy-saving improvements.
An Energy Department spokesperson told us, “There will also be limited support available for biomass boilers in rural areas, where strict air quality and emissions criteria are met.”
The scheme cannot be used to install hybrid heat pump systems (like a combined gas boiler and air source heat pump). The scheme also sets a maximum capacity of 45kWth for individual systems and 300kWth for shared ground loops.
How popular is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme?
According to the latest statistics from the UK government, as of August 2024, some 51,872 applications had been received. Most of these (about 97%) are for ASHP, with the rest for GSHP and biomass boilers.
That’s pretty close to the cap of around 60,000, so if you are interested in it, you’d better get your skates on. The faster, the better since around 28% of the UK population are aware of the scheme and what it can offer them, according to the 2024 National Home Energy Survey.
The scheme has proved to be so popular that in October 2024, the government committed a further £50 million to meet booming demand.
Am I eligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme?
You can consider yourself eligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme if you meet a few simple requirements:
- You must be a homeowner or small business owner
- Your property must be in England or Wales
- The building must have been issued an energy performance certificate (EPC) in the past 10 years
- You must follow one of the three EPC scenarios listed below
There are three valid paths to making sure your EPC is eligible:
- Your EPC contains no recommendations for loft or cavity wall insulation
- It contains one of these insulation recommendations, but you insulate your home between applying for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and getting a heat pump installed
- Your property has an EPC or insulation exemption – for example, this may be the case if you own a listed building
If your property is a custom-built home, it won’t need an EPC to qualify, as you will have had to follow the latest eco-friendly building regulations to complete it. You will also need to be the person who built the home to apply, and it must never have been owned by business.
If you meet all of these requirements, an installer can apply to get a discount on an air or ground source heat pump for you.
To qualify for a £7,500 biomass boiler discount, you must fulfill some additional criteria in addition to the ones listed above. To start with, your property must be in a rural area (one with fewer than 10,000 residents), and have no mains gas connection.
The building must also meet high emissions standards, which the government has explained is “to mitigate any negative impact on air quality.” Of course, that’s not how emissions work – but it’s certainly true that biomass boilers are better for the climate than gas boilers.
How do I apply for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme?
From 23 May 2022 until the closure of the scheme in 2028, an installer will be able to apply for a voucher for a heat pump or biomass boiler installation, on a first come, first served basis.
After they receive the voucher, they’ll have three months (120 days) to use it to install an air source heat pump or biomass boiler at your home, or six months if you’re getting a ground source heat pump installed.
After the installation has taken place, they’ll be able to redeem this voucher to reduce the overall cost.
The government has said “this approach allows for a smoother and simpler consumer journey, while maintaining certainty for installers.”
You can start getting quotes now, and when you agree on a figure, your installer will apply for the grant.
Does this make heat pumps affordable?
Yes. For 60,000 lucky homes, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme will reduce the average cost of an air-source heat pump from between £9,000 and £15,000 (depending on spec and location) by £7,500.
According to our calculations on air source heat pump costs, moving from a gas boiler to a heat pump will save you £4,891 over its lifespan.
And this figure will increase if the price of gas stays high, and the price of electricity continues to fall.
Does the scheme go far enough?
No. In 2023, only 30,000 heat pumps were installed, which isn’t even half of 2022’s rate of installations, which saw 72,000 installed. According to the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), 200,000 certified heat pump installations have been completed in UK homes.
That means the UK is way off the 3.3 million mark that the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) says the government needs to reach by 2030 to achieve its target of net-zero emissions by 2050.
The adoption rate must rise to one million installations per year by 2030 to reach 3.3 million, so it’s unclear how 30,000 discounted heat pumps per year – at most – is sufficient.
Even the government’s own goal for heat pumps—600,000 per year by 2028—seems like a distant dream if it won’t put serious money where its mouth is. A key limiting factor could be the need for better public awareness of heat pumps and the grants that exist to help overcome the upfront cost.
In the 2024 NHES, it was revealed that 1-in-4 people are not aware of any grant, and only 28% are aware of the BUS.
That follows on from the 2023 NHES, which found that only 51% of people are even aware of heat pumps..
A government spokesperson told The Eco Experts: “Electric heat pumps will have a key role to play in decarbonising our homes and buildings” – but there’s no proof that the administration believes this.
For the UK government, which spends around one trillion pounds per year, this £150 million per year scheme is an insult to anyone who cares about the climate. It’s not received even a quarter of the funding set aside for £2 billion Green Homes Grant, which the government bungled by neglecting to promote or explain it to the public.
It’s just 2.7% of the £16.5 billion needed to install 3.3 million heat pumps in homes by the end of the decade. Residential homes make up 16.4% of the UK’s emissions and constitute the only major part of the nation’s carbon footprint that hasn’t fallen since 2011.That seems unlikely to change any time soon.
The government’s response to concerns
In 2023, we asked the government whether it thought the scheme was sufficient to reach the CCC’s 3.3 million heat pump target by 2030.
An Energy Department spokesperson then told us: “The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is one of many policies supporting the development of the heat pump market towards 600,000 per year by
[2028]
, with thousands of low-income homes already upgraded through schemes such as Home Upgrade Grant and Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.
“It wouldn’t be right for the taxpayer to fund a new heat pump or clean heating system for every household, just as they do not for gas boilers now.”
The spokesperson continued: “This scheme will kickstart the market and we are working with industry to bring down costs with the aim of ensuring they are as cheap to buy and run as fossil fuel boilers by 2030.”
It is important to note that the scheme will not fully fund a clean heating system for anyone; it will only partly cut the initial cost and will only do so for a maximum of 20,000 homes per year.
