Free or cheap loans for solar panels among key measures in Government's 'Warm Homes Plan' – Martin L

QrizB

The previous funding level was £1.8bn for 2025-28 across both warm homes schemes:

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/47167/documents/244271/default/

The official Government announcement doesn't entirely add up but it seems to say that £1.8bn is going to become £5bn, plus another £5bn to underpin the loan scheme.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-01-21/hlws1263

Exactly what's intended for the remaining £5bn isn't clear from that announcement.

michaels

QrizB said:

The previous funding level was £1.8bn for 2025-28 across both warm homes schemes:

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/47167/documents/244271/default/

The official Government announcement doesn't entirely add up but it seems to say that £1.8bn is going to become £5bn, plus another £5bn to underpin the loan scheme.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-01-21/hlws1263

Exactly what's intended for the remaining £5bn isn't clear from that announcement.

Aren't there a lot more heat pump grants as well?

tfhnota

Previously, to get the right energy epc upgrade for Local Grant etc you had to combine solar with heat pump, they now seem to be suggesting that you can have solar/battery regardless of epc and no need to have heat pump - so they could be saving money by not doing heat pump installs!

debitcardmayhem

tfhnota said:

Previously, to get the right energy epc upgrade for Local Grant etc you had to combine solar with heat pump, they now seem to be suggesting that you can have solar/battery regardless of epc and no need to have heat pump - so they could be saving money by not doing heat pump installs!

They realise that EPC is not fit for purpose, since current way of doing it adding a heat pump lowers the EPC. 

Ildhund

debitcardmayhem said:
They realise that EPC is not fit for purpose, since current way of doing it adding a heat pump lowers the EPC. 

I wonder if you could explain 'lowers the EPC.' If EPC ratings were numbers instead of letters, so 1-7 instead of A-G, then D (= 4) would unambiguously be lower than F (= 6). If you think of the scale arranged vertically, perhaps like on your fridge's efficiency rating label, then F would definitely be lower than D. Does installing a heat pump improve the EPC rating or not?

I ask, because there's no apparent standard for this type of rating. In my schooldays for example, 'O' levels were graded 1-9, with 1 the highest and best. I read recently that nowadays it's the exact opposite, with grade 1 the lowest and worst. 

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[I admit to having a bit of a bee in my bonnet about random rating systems. A restaurateur would be delighted to be awarded a ⭐by M. Michelin, but less so if it came from a Trustpilot reviewer. How is one to know which applies in a specific case?]

Yarrows

My understanding is that the EPC takes into account the ongoing cost of running the property as well as environmental sustainability and because electricity is more expensive than gas, replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump would, according to their methodology, worsen that aspect of the EPC all other things being equal.

My EPC grade improved by 2 letters (that is, D to B ) but I was replacing storage heaters. My resulting EPC score was also a bit less than it could have been because my system is *not* set up with zones...

debitcardmayhem

Descriptive terms Highest and Lowest then it gets weird 🤓
A Highest efficiency likely to have lowest bills
F Lowest efficiency likely to highest bills

However a heat pump running runs on electricity , which is higher cost per kWh than gas/oil , but of course a well specified heat pump is more efficient per kWh of input fuel so often is cost neutral c.f. other fuels, for the same useful output power. The current EPC ratings looked at input cost / unit and marked the EPC down(or up) say from C to D (lower efficiency, but higher costs) . 

I suppose I could have used either higher or lower in my post and now wish I hadn’t bothered😎
Let’s just say EPCs are currently not very useful 

tfhnota

That is actually good if you just do a solo heat pump upgrade because if you were a high D then you would become a mid D EPC, and still qualify for other grants under the current system...

matt_drummer

My heat pump is 506% efficient for the last twelve months, heating is 526% efficient and DHW is 349% efficient.

That means on standard electricity rates my cost would be around 5p per kWh.

What is gas and oil today taking account of boiler efficiencies?

My actual cost using battery storage is about 1.5p per kWh

I wonder what that would do to my EPC?

There is nothing special about my heat pump, it's a cheapish Daikin unit installed by Octopus and my pipework leaves a lot to be desired.

I am confident that I could replicate this performance in any most UK houses.