Number of households receiving authorities warmth pump grants value as much as £7,500 rises 204% in a yr
- Boiler Upgrade Scheme just had its most successful ever quarter
Record numbers of households are getting government heat pump grants worth up to £7,500, figures reveal.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) gives grants to fit a heat pump in properties to encourage the take-up of ‘greener’ heating technology.
The latest figures show a record 7,090 households got a BUS grant in the period from August to October 2024.
That is rise of 35 per cent on the previous three months, and an increase of 204 per cent annually
Grants totalling £53.1million were given out in August-October 2024 – around a fifth of all BUS grants paid since the scheme launched in May 2022.
An Ofgem spokesman said the boom in heat pump grants was partly due to the maximum grant being raised from £5,000 in 2023, as well as the former government cutting red tape around minimum insulation requirements in May 2024.
Pump action: Britons are warming up to heat pumps, with installation grants proving popular
Heat pump installation costs vary hugely, depending on your home, the heat pump you pick and whether any upgrade work is required to your property.
The £7,500 BUS grant is unlikely to fund the full cost of getting a heat pump. British Gas, a major heat pump installer, said its starting price was £7,999 for an air source heat pump, but that most customers paid £13,190.
However, demand for heat pumps is still lagging behind the overall funding of the BUS.
The BUS paid out £88.8million in 2023/24, against a budget of £150million, while in 2022/23 the BUS paid out £51million.
The Government has set aside £180million for the BUS for the current 2024/25 year, with £30million of that being added last month.
The most common sort of heat pump funded by the BUS are air source varieties, Ofgem figures show.
Air source heat pump applications to date total 36,165, or 96.7 per cent of all BUS grants.
Ground source heat pumps got 2.6 per cent of BUS funding, biomass boilers 0.7 per cent and shared ground loop heat pumps 0.06 per cent.
The South East was the region getting the most BUS grants, followed by the South West and the East.
Half of BUS grants are used to replace gas boilers, with 19 per cent upgrading heating oil systems.
More than a sixth of BUS grants (16.2 per cent) were used to fit heat pumps to a house that had no previous heating system, while 9.2 per cent replaced electric heaters.
| Ranking | Region | Total grants | Total % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | South East | 7,433 | 19.9 |
| 2. | South West | 6,863 | 18.3 |
| 3. | East | 5,062 | 13.5 |
| 4. | East Midlands | 3,740 | 10 |
| 5. | Yorkshire and the Humber | 3,598 | 9.6 |
| 6. | North West | 2,940 | 7.9 |
| 7. | West Midlands | 2,857 | 7.6 |
| 8. | London | 1,950 | 5.2 |
| 9. | Wales | 1,930 | 5.2 |
| 10. | North East | 1,044 | 2.8 |
| Source: Ofgem | |||
Labour will further promote the uptake of heat pumps as part of its Warm Homes Plan.
This is a Government manifesto initiative to improve the properties of low-income homeowners and private tenants in homes with EPC ratings of D to G to at least C.
Each eligible home can use the scheme to access £15,000 for energy perfomance improvements and an extra £15,000 to fit low-carbon heating, such as heat pumps.
Homeowners and tenants will not have to pay any of their own cash to upgrade their homes in this way.
However, landlords will get one home’s upgrades paid for under the scheme, then contribute to paying 50 per cent of the cost of improving each extra home.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in her Autumn Budget that £3.4billion would be spent on the Warm Homes Plan from 2025 until 2028. The plan aims to upgrade five million houses.
