Around a million homes will be made warmer and hundreds of business supported as £6 billion is allocated to cut energy use and bills.
- Around a million homes will be made warmer, with £6 billion allocated to cut energy use and bills
- targeted support for 200,000 low income, cold and social homes, as government backs families to reach net zero
- extra £1.5 billion for Boiler Upgrade Scheme, after success of £7,500 uplift to heat pump grants
Around a million families and hundreds of businesses will be helped to cut their energy use, backed by £6 billion, as part of the new approach to net zero that will save on costs for the public.
Families will benefit from a range of options to heat their home for less and reduce emissions through energy efficiency measures, such as insulation for around 500,000 homes and hundreds of thousands more grants for heat pumps.
The 50% increase in the heat pump grant to £7,500 has already led to a 57% increase in applications. After the success of this scheme, an additional £1.5 billion of funding will ensure more homes and businesses can install heat pumps, helping people transition easily to the modern, clean heating systems needed to become a net zero nation.
Under new plans, all new homes and buildings will be zero-carbon ready from 2025 too, saving any further costs for families to future-proof their new home as we embrace clean heating.
The Future Homes and Buildings Standards, recently launched for consultation, will ensure new homes and buildings are fit for the future and help meet net zero ambitions. Energy-saving changes will deliver significantly lower bill costs than the vast majority of existing homes, while also reducing carbon emissions by at least 75% for all new homes compared to 2013 standards.
To improve existing homes, going beyond a manifesto commitment of £9.2 billion for energy efficiency to 2030, today’s announcement confirms the government will have committed to spend £12.6 billion by 2028. The £6 billion announced at Autumn Statement 2022 and allocated today will support tens of thousands of green jobs while helping homes, hospitals, schools and businesses to save money.
These include the following schemes, which are subject to business case approval and value for money assessments:
- the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, allocated a further £1.5 billion, to support families in England and Wales move away from gas to energy efficient, low-carbon heat pumps
- a new £400 million energy efficiency grant, launching in 2025, for households in England to make changes such as bigger radiators or better insulation
- a new local authority retrofit scheme, allocated £500 million to support up to 60,000 low-income and cold homes, including those off the gas grid, with measures such as insulation
- the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, allocated £1.25 billion to support up to 140,000 social homes to be insulated or retrofitted, improving energy performance and lowering bills
- the Green Heat Network Fund, allocated £485 million to help up to 60,000 homes and buildings access affordable, low carbon heating through new heat networks, reducing our use of fossil fuels and providing more reliable heating
- the Heat Network Efficiency Scheme, allocated £45 million to improve around 100 existing heat networks, in a move that will reduce bills and improve reliability
- the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, allocated £225 million, will continue to help businesses transition to a low-carbon future
Businesses, heavy industries and public sector organisations such as schools and hospitals will also benefit from the Public Sector Decarbonisation scheme and wider industrial energy efficiency and decarbonisation support, through to 2028.
The government will also explore ways to expand heat networks to deliver more low-carbon heating to homes and businesses in England. The Heat Network Zoning Consultation will set out how heat networks will be delivered in areas where they are likely to be the cheapest low carbon option - to ensure families benefit from local, clean heat at fair prices.
