What is the Clean Heat Grant?
As we all take induvial steps to help the UK reach net zero strategy, The Government switch out the ‘Renewable Heat Incentive’ and replace it for the ‘Clean Heat Grant’ which is set to be available for two years, ending in March 2024. This is one of many amongst their ‘Ten Point Plan’ including installing 600,000 heat pumps per year by 2028.
The new Government scheme is set to offer grants up to £4,000 towards heat pump installations, this is inclusive of: ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps and water source heat pumps. Directed towards households and small non-domestic buildings within the UK, helping them with the upfront cost of installation of a system that has a max run capacity of 45kw. There is a funded pot capped at £450 million, so limited grants are on offer to approx. 90,000 households.
Requirements
- Must hold a valid in date EPC certificate for the property applying. You can find out if your property has a valid or expired EPC here and apply for one at a cost of £90.
- The property in application must not have any outstanding recommendations on the EPC for loft or wall/cavity insulation, this includes meeting the new minimum insulation requirements (270mm thick). However there will be a few exceptions such as being a listed building.
- An assessment from an installer is required and a proposal will need to be submitted.
Application Process
Applying for your voucher is a consumer’s responsibility and installation partners should redeem voucher. 3 months is set to be the default validity period for air source heat pumps, and for water source and ground source heat pumps the default validity period is set to 6 months. Special circumstances will be considered. Typically, a voucher for a new build is eligible under the non-domestic category, whereas existing and custom-built buildings are usually eligible under the domestic scheme. The Government is keen to support the custom-build because they do not benefit from the same economic scale as housing developers and their supply chain rely upon.
You can read more about the Clean Heat Grant here on the Government website