Boiler Upgrade Scheme

Who can claim

Homeowners and small landlords in England and Wales replacing a fossil-fuel heating system.

What it covers

Air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps and, in limited cases, biomass boilers in rural off-gas homes.

The headline grant for households moving away from gas or oil. The £7,500 is paid to the installer, not to you, so the quote you see should already net it off. To qualify you need a valid EPC without outstanding recommendations for loft or cavity wall insulation, and the installer must be MCS certified. The scheme runs until 2028 but the budget is finite and the demand curve is steepening.

England and Wales only. Scotland uses the Home Energy Scotland grant and interest-free loan instead; Northern Ireland has no direct equivalent.

Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan

Who can claim

Scottish homeowners installing heat pumps, insulation, solar, batteries or heating controls.

What it covers

Heat pumps and connections to heat networks, plus a long list of fabric and renewables measures.

Scotland's equivalent of BUS, but broader and more generous. The grant covers heat pumps, solar thermal, insulation, draught-proofing and storage. Rural uplifts add £1,500 for heat pumps and £750 for solar. The interest-free loan can stack on top of the grant to cover the rest of the project. Applications go through Home Energy Scotland.

Scotland only. You must own the home and live in it, or it must be a private rental you let on a regulated tenancy.

Energy Company Obligation 4

Who can claim

Low-income households or homes in EPC bands D to G with someone receiving qualifying benefits.

What it covers

Insulation, heating system upgrades, first-time central heating and renewables for the worst-performing homes.

ECO4 is delivered by the major energy suppliers and runs until March 2026. It targets the least efficient homes in the country and the households least able to upgrade them. Eligibility is driven by EPC band and benefits, with some flexibility for local authorities to refer households outside the headline criteria. The quality of installs varies; insist on a TrustMark certificate and a PAS 2035 retrofit assessment before agreeing to work.

Open until March 2026. A successor scheme has been consulted on but not yet legislated, so expect a gap.

Great British Insulation Scheme

Who can claim

Households in EPC bands D to G with a council tax band of A to D in England, or A to E in Scotland and Wales.

What it covers

One insulation measure per home; usually loft or cavity wall.

GBIS was set up to widen the ECO net to households who do not claim benefits but live in poorly insulated, lower-value housing. It is more limited than ECO4; one measure per home, and only the cheapest fabric measures. For a typical Victorian terrace in a low council tax band, the funded loft insulation is genuinely useful; for newer or already-insulated homes it rarely applies.

Runs until March 2026 in parallel with ECO4. Apply through your energy supplier or via the gov.uk eligibility checker.

Warm Homes; Local Grant

Who can claim

Lower-income households in England, off the gas grid or in poorly insulated homes, working through their local authority.

What it covers

Whole-home retrofits including insulation, ventilation, heat pumps, solar and batteries.

The successor to the Home Upgrade Grant and the Local Authority Delivery scheme, launched in 2025. Funding goes to councils, who refer eligible households and appoint approved contractors. The strength of the scheme is the whole-house approach; the weakness is that availability depends on which council you live in and how quickly they spend their allocation.

Eligibility and waiting times vary widely by local authority. Apply through your council, not through gov.uk directly.

Zero-rate VAT on energy-saving materials

Who can claim

Any homeowner in Great Britain installing qualifying measures.

What it covers

Heat pumps, solar PV and thermal, batteries (when fitted), insulation, draught-stripping, controls and water-source heat pumps.

Not a grant, but functionally one of the most valuable reliefs available. Since 2022 the government has zero-rated VAT on energy-saving materials and the labour to install them, and confirmed in 2024 that the relief covers retrofitted batteries even without solar. Installers should price net of VAT; if a quote shows 20%, it is wrong. The relief is in place until at least April 2027.

Northern Ireland follows the same rules in practice. Maintenance and repair work on existing systems remains standard-rated.

Smart Export Guarantee

Who can claim

Anyone with eligible small-scale generation, usually solar PV under 5MW.

What it covers

Payments for surplus electricity exported back to the grid.

SEG is an ongoing payment, not a one-off grant, and it is the lever that decides whether solar pays back in a decade or in eighteen years. Suppliers set their own rates; the best deals at the moment require you to buy your import electricity from the same company. Octopus, EDF and OVO publish the most competitive tariffs. Check before installation that your inverter is SEG-eligible and that your installer commissions an MCS certificate, which the supplier will ask for.

Tariffs change frequently. The headline rate is less important than the contract length and whether the supplier requires a smart meter in export mode.

Warm Home Discount

Who can claim

Pensioners on Pension Credit and lower-income households with high energy costs.

What it covers

A one-off rebate applied automatically each winter.

Not a retrofit grant but worth knowing about, particularly for older relatives. Most eligible households now receive the discount automatically; you do not need to apply if you receive the Guarantee element of Pension Credit. The qualifying criteria for the broader group are tied to property characteristics that suggest high energy costs.

Different rules apply in Scotland; the discount is sometimes paid by the supplier rather than automatically.

EV Chargepoint Grant

Who can claim

Flat owners, renters in single-unit properties, and residents of houses in multiple occupation.

What it covers

Supply and installation of a smart EV charger.

The old Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme closed to most homeowners in 2022. The replacement is narrower, deliberately aimed at the households that the original scheme missed; flats and rentals. If you own a house and the driveway, you no longer qualify, but the workplace and cross-pavement variants are worth checking if you cannot install on your own land.

The chargepoint must be on the OZEV approved list, and the installer must be OZEV authorised.