Heat pump installations hit record 61,000 in a quarter as grant uptake surges

More than 61,000 heat pumps were installed in homes in the UK between July and September, the highest quarterly figure ever recorded and almost double the number a year earlier, according to data from the industry certification body MCS published on Friday.

The rise follows the government’s decision in April to move about £130 a year of policy costs off electricity bills and on to general taxation, narrowing the gap between the price of electricity and gas, and a rule change that allows the £7,500 boiler upgrade grant to be combined with interest-free loans offered by several lenders. Applications for the grant have run at about 5,000 a week since June, and the scheme’s budget for the year was fully committed by September, forcing the Treasury to add £220m.

Installers say the change in the economics has been decisive. “Two years ago I was telling people a heat pump would cost them roughly the same to run as a gas boiler, and they did not believe me, because they had seen their electricity bill,” said Darren Whitfield, who runs a 14-person installation firm in Nottingham. “Now I can show them a saving of £150 to £250 a year on paper, and the grant covers most of the difference up front. We are booked until March.”

The sector is still far short of the government’s goal of 600,000 installations a year by 2028, a target inherited from the previous administration and reaffirmed in the warm homes plan published in June. On the current trajectory, annual installations would reach about 250,000 by then. The UK has installed fewer heat pumps per head than any large European country, with roughly 3 per 1,000 households against 30 in France and 60 in Norway.

Analysts point to two constraints. The first is installers: MCS counts about 6,800 certified heat pump businesses, up from 2,900 in 2023, but says a further 20,000 trained engineers would be needed to hit the target. The second is housing stock, with about 40% of British homes needing insulation or larger radiators before a heat pump will heat them efficiently, work that is not covered by the grant.

“The grant is doing what it was meant to do, which is get the willing early adopters over the line,” said Dr Imogen Rutherford, senior analyst at the think tank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. “The hard part is the terraced house in Burnley with a landlord who will not spend £6,000 on insulation. No grant reaches that house. Regulation has to.”

The government has confirmed that gas boilers will no longer be installed in new homes from 2027 under the future homes standard, and is consulting on requiring landlords to meet a minimum energy efficiency rating by 2030. It has ruled out a ban on replacing gas boilers in existing homes.

The energy secretary said the figures showed “a market finally moving at the speed the climate requires”, and that the grant would be guaranteed “for the rest of this parliament”.