Tag: 2025

The press release issued by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on 11 March 2025.

Hundreds of thousands of homes in England to benefit from energy efficiency upgrades, helping families stay warm and cut bills.

Up to 170,000 homes in England will benefit from energy efficiency upgrades as the rollout of the Warm Homes Plan gathers pace, helping more families lower their energy bills and improve their homes.

£1.8 billion in government support will from today (Tuesday 11 March) be allocated to local authorities and social housing providers, in a new boost which will support them to deliver warmer, more energy efficient homes in local communities across England.

This funding will be targeted towards low-income households and tenants living in social housing, with thousands of families set to receive energy performance and clean heating upgrades in the form of insulation, solar panels and heat pumps.

At a time when many are experiencing high energy bills driven by the UK’s reliance on international gas markets, this funding through the Warm Homes: Local Grant and the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund schemes could now help households save hundreds of pounds a year.

This move will help deliver a milestone of higher living standards in every part of the UK by the end of Parliament by boosting people’s Real Household Disposable Income – a key part of our Plan for Change.

Minister for Energy Consumers, Miatta Fahnbulleh, said:

Living in a warm, comfortable home should not be a luxury. It is a right that has been out of reach for too many people for too long.

By giving this funding to local authorities and social housing providers we are delivering on our promise to improve the homes of thousands of people across England.

As part of our Plan for Change, we are powering on with our Warm Homes Plan, upgrading cold and draughty homes so they are warmer, cleaner, and cheaper to live in.

The Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund will deliver up to £1.29 billion of funding to 144 projects across England with the Warm Homes: Local Grant allocating £500 million to 73 projects across 270 local authorities over the next 3 years.

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) will receive an allocation of this funding as part of the Warm Homes and Public Sector Decarbonisation Devolution Programme.

This funding complements the government’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower, delivering energy security and bringing down bills for good.

The expected rise in the price cap shows once again the cost of remaining reliant on the unstable global fossil fuel markets that are driving price increases.

The funding allocations follows the recent announcement on the Warm Homes Discount with almost 3 million more households, including almost 1 million households with children, becoming eligible for £150 to pay their energy bills next winter, as the government consults on proposals to offer more support to consumers across the country.

This comes after other government support to deliver warmer, more energy efficient homes and protect consumers, including:

• consulting on plans to mandate private landlords in England and Wales to improve the energy performance of their properties by 2030, saving private renters £240 per year on average on their energy bills
• setting out a £500 million Winter Package with Energy UK to help customers with their energy bills
• extending the Household Support Fund to help vulnerable households with essential costs like food, energy, and water bills
• helping more families get a heat pump by almost doubling the budget for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme in the next financial year to £295 million, along with allocating an extra £55 million for the rest of this financial year. And removing the rule requiring heat pumps to be installed at least one metre from a property’s boundary

Kate Henderson, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, said:

We welcome this funding allocation to help decarbonise England’s social homes; a crucial step towards the government’s commitment to tackle fuel poverty.

With the fund oversubscribed, it is clear that there is both momentum and appetite among housing associations to upgrade their homes at scale and pace. The sector is working hard to ensure all their homes meet EPC C by 2030, in line with the government’s net zero target.

Decarbonising our homes is a win win for residents, the government and our planet, creating warmer homes, saving residents money and tackling the climate emergency.

Gavin Smart, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute for Housing (CIH), said:

We welcome this investment as another important step towards making homes warmer, healthier, and more affordable to run. Social landlords have worked hard to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, and this funding will help them to continue that work—supporting retrofit programmes that will reduce fuel poverty, lower carbon emissions, and bring down energy bills for tenants.

The strong demand for this funding highlights how vital energy efficiency investment is for the social housing sector. CIH will continue to work with government and our members to support the effective rollout of this funding and advocate for the long-term investment needed to make all homes warmer and safer.

Tracy Harrison, Chief Executive of the Northern Housing Consortium, said:

The North has lots of older, colder homes – with 1 in 5 built before 1919 and almost a million households currently in fuel poverty – so this Warm Homes investment will make a big difference to people’s lives. NHC members, including housing associations, local authorities and combined authorities across the North, are working to tackle this by installing tens of thousands of energy efficiency measures from heat pumps to home insulation.

This extra funding from government is very welcome and will boost these efforts, helping to cut carbon emissions, support jobs, cut fuel bills and tackle fuel poverty. We also welcome the move to devolve retrofit funding in the North through the allocation of funding to Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s Integrated Settlement.

This will allow funding to better align with locally led plans for economic growth, training and skills provision, as well as support greater collaboration between housing providers in Greater Manchester. We know there is continuing appetite from our members to continue to make our homes more energy efficient.

Derek Horrocks, Chairman of Sustainable Energy UL, said:

With up to 170,000 households supported under today’s announcement, this will positively impact thousands of the most vulnerable in society through the creation of warmer, healthier, drier, and more affordable-to-heat homes.

Building on the success of previous energy efficiency programmes, the initiative will also drive significant investment in training and skills development, strengthening the workforce needed for the UK’s transition to net zero. Alongside safeguarding existing jobs, the plan will also generate thousands of new roles in the growing green economy and enable the supply chain to continue to invest in the sector for the long term with confidence.

The press release issued by the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero on 10 March 2025.

Dozens of clean energy projects will jump to the front of the queue for grid connections, through new measures in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

• Grid connections for the most important projects for clean power to be prioritised by 2030, replacing the archaic ‘first come, first served’ process
• Wait for new grid connections will be cut by up to seven years
• Measures include speeding up the construction of new energy infrastructure with targeted reforms to support planning decisions on at least 150 major projects this Parliament
• Delivering the government’s clean power mission and Plan for Change to drive growth, create jobs, and protect billpayers in every region across the country

Dozens of clean energy projects, including wind and solar power, will jump to the front of the queue for grid connections, as the government paves the way for a new era of clean electricity through the Plan for Change to achieve clean power by 2030.

The landmark Planning and Infrastructure Bill will be formally introduced to Parliament this week, laying the groundwork for a new approach to prioritise new transmission infrastructure which will unlock growth with £200 billion of investment and protect households from the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets.

Ready-to-go projects from solar farms to new factories currently face lengthy connection waits of up to 10 years due to an out of date connections process, creating uncertainty for communities and businesses, costing the taxpayer millions of pounds, and weakening the country’s energy security.

The flawed ‘first come, first served’ process is preventing viable infrastructure from being able to connect ahead of speculative projects clogging up the queue, and will be replaced by a ‘first ready, first connected’ system that prioritises the right homegrown clean power projects for quicker connections to build an energy system that can bring down bills for good.

For decades, developers, energy companies and businesses have been inundated with lengthy processes and planning delays that have acted as a barrier to growth, and the forthcoming Bill will set out how the delivery process for critical infrastructure will be streamlined.

Decisions for onshore and offshore wind, solar power, electricity grids, hydrogen, carbon capture and nuclear power stations will be fast-tracked to accelerate growth, creating thousands of new jobs, adding billions to the UK economy, and delivering more clean energy for people to heat and power their homes.

These changes will not only rollback planning delays to get Britain building but also deliver a more prosperous and energy secure future for the next generation, as part of the government’s Plan for Change to boost growth and living standards in every region across the country and put more money back into people’s pockets.

Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said:

“Time and again blockers have been allowed to halt progress at every turn which has weakened our energy security and left our country exposed to soaring energy bills for working people, families and businesses. This cannot and will not continue under my watch.

“Through our landmark Planning and Infrastructure Bill we’re taking bold action to fix the broken planning system, paving the way for us to get Britain building more vital infrastructure so our children and grandchildren can grow up in a more energy secure world.

“This is just one of many steps we’re taking to deliver our Plan for Change for working people and families with a decade of national renewal, unleashing growth to boost living standards, slash everyday costs and increase prosperity for all.”

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said:

“The only way to get Britain off dependency on fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators is with clean homegrown power that we control.

“By taking on a broken planning system that puts the brakes on growth, this Government is driving forward with our clean energy superpower mission and Plan for change

“Every turbine, every solar panel, every cable we connect helps protect families and paves the way for a new era of clean energy for our country.”

New measures will speed up the approval process for nationally significant infrastructure projects by making consultation less burdensome, strengthening guidance to expert bodies and local authorities about their role in the process, and updating National Policy Statements at least every five years to reflect government priorities for infrastructure delivery.

This will support the government’s pledge to make planning decisions on at least 150 major infrastructure projects, including wind, solar, and hydrogen, in this Parliament – almost tripling the 57 decisions made in the previous Parliament and more than 130 made since 2011.

The government has already agreed 10 so far, including several energy projects such as six solar farms, amounting to nearly 3 gigawatts of new clean energy for the country.

A series of targeted reforms to accelerate growth and speed up the government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan will be brought forward in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. These include:

• People living within up to 500 metres of new pylons will get electricity bill discounts of up to £2,500 over 10 years to ensure those hosting critical grid infrastructure benefit from supporting the government’s mission to clean power by the end of this decade.
• Instructing Ofgem to deliver a ‘cap and floor’ scheme to unlock billions of pounds of investment in long duration electricity storage (LDES) to store renewable power and deliver the first major projects in four decades.
• Replacing street works licences with permits to accelerate the rollout of electric vehicle chargepoints and make it easier, cheaper, and faster to install on public roads and streets.
• Changes to the outdated planning rules for new clean electricity infrastructure in Scotland, such as onshore wind farms and pylons, cutting excessive and costly delays to the process while ensuring local voices are heard in applications.
• An extension to the generator commissioning period (GCC) from 18 to 27 months to reduce the number of offshore wind farms requiring exemptions when applying for licences to connect to onshore cables and substations.

Further changes will also be confirmed to the excessive rules around attempts to block major infrastructure through the courts with more unarguable cases thrown out, so nuclear plants and wind farms can be approved and built faster. This is on top of streamlining environment assessments to save developers time and money while boosting nature recovery and wildlife.

Note to editors:

• The government recently announced its commitment to deliver a new 10-Year Infrastructure Strategy, providing more certainty for supply chains and helping to unlock private investment over the next decade for new housing, schools, hospitals, and public transport.
• New planning reforms unveiled this week will also support the government’s Plan for Change milestone to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years, recognising that more renewable energy and electricity networks are crucial to meeting this ambitious target.
• Working with Parliamentarians, the government will ensure a smooth and speedy delivery of the Bill to become law as soon as possible.
• Reforms to the grid connections queue are subject to a final approval by Ofgem. In February, Ofgem announced it is minded to approve the reforms.