Potential cuts to BUS grant

[Beelbeebub]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/12/ministers-plan-slash-heat-pump-subsidies-fund-defence-spending

 

Bad (if they happen) but maybe will also help squeeze out the "grant farmers" and make more people just go ahead and do a simple "DIY" install rather than having a gold plated MCS one which ends up costing the same anyway.

 

I note the VAT exemption for solar installs is ending this April so I don't expect that will be renewed but I understand they are 5% rated anyway so not a huge difference?

Edited Monday at 07:10 by Beelbeebub

[Roger440]

16 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/12/ministers-plan-slash-heat-pump-subsidies-fund-defence-spending

 

Bad (if they happen) but maybe will also help squeeze out the "grant farmers" and make more people just go ahead and do a simple "DIY" install rather than having a gold plated MCS one which ends up costing the same anyway.

 

I note the VAT exemption for solar installs is ending this April so I don't expect that will be renewed but I understand they are 5% rated anyway so not a huge difference?

 

About time too. Handing out free money at £9k a time is insanity given other pressures. Its abundantly clear that the higher the grant goes, the higher the prices go.

[JohnMo]

21 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

 

About time too. Handing out free money at £9k a time is insanity given other pressures. Its abundantly clear that the higher the grant goes, the higher the prices go.

Couldn't agree more, just need to get rid of MCS next.

 

42 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

VAT exemption for solar installs is ending this April so I don't expect that will be renewed but I understand they are 5% rated anyway so not a huge difference?

Only VAT except when you do an MCS install, so carries a large MCS tax anyway. 

[PhilT]

It would be the death knell for heat pumps in the UK. Takeup is already extremely poor despite the generous grant.

Edited Monday at 13:13 by PhilT

[Nickfromwales]

6 hours ago, Roger440 said:

 

About time too. Handing out free money at £9k a time is insanity given other pressures. Its abundantly clear that the higher the grant goes, the higher the prices go.

Amen, reverend. 
 

The FIT was just as grotesque.

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, PhilT said:

would be the death knell for heat pumps in the UK. Takeup is already extremely poor despite the generous grant.

Wasn't for PV it went from strength to strength. Even without the stupid high feed in tariffs

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, PhilT said:

It would be the death knell for heat pumps in the UK. Takeup is already extremely poor despite the generous grant.

I suspect a lot of the poor take up is the insanely high prices being charged on top of the grant.  I don't hold MCS or most of the installers in high regard at all.

[Indy]

I'm one who chose not to go down the heat pump route even with the £7.5k. For a few reasons, though cost was one of the largest drivers:

 

1. I didn't want an ugly box sitting in my garden/rear patio ruining the view.

2. To put it anywhere else would have meant paying through the nose for a noise assessment to appease the council and check a box - even if I was going to get acoustic screening etc. Wasn't enough - computer says assessment needed!

3. The huge markup applied by virtually every installer. I distinctly remember these being a lot cheaper in 2020-2021 when I first started looking at them. Don't know the exact date when the BUS grant started (mid 2022 maybe?) but the prices jumped magically overnight to be more expensive than before - even after taking the grant into account! I could never wrap my head around that and the greed/profiteering/market economics of the whole situation put me off massively!

4. Jury is still out whether heat pumps are as effective as gas boilers at keeping your house warm. I know this site has an over representation of people who have one and can geek out over the details - a large part of the builder/plumber population still don't seem to rate them very highly. The advice from my builder was why go for one when it's potentially not as good and more expensive to install.

 

We did the next best thing - i.e. put in the pipework for a future swap out to be easier. Hopefully in 10 years time, tech has advanced enough and costs have come down to a level where it's going to be comparable to a boiler replacement. At that point, I may go for one. 

[saveasteading]

40 minutes ago, Indy said:

a large part of the builder/plumber population still don't seem to rate them very highly.

 

Permission to be outspoken?

 

That's because they don't know much*.  Plumbers dont generally know much about it. The ones who do claim to be expert mostly get the designs done via their merchant who in turn go to their supplier. 

 

The ones who rightly don't say they are skilled in it....  are too busy plumbing to go on courses.

 

That leaves the ones who fancy the work and the grants, and can still charge a lot in an overheated market.

 

* I have discussed with plenty. Some bluff and perhaps exaggerate the little they do know, but some honestly say what they know and what  they don't.  But others talk the buzz words without actually understanding.

In such discussions they generally assume I am an ignorant punter, and so I let them do their thing for a while.

 

What I want is them to be able to join the pipes up and commission it.

 

A large part of the builder population also think that Engineers, Architects, Building Inspectors ....and so on.... don't know what they are doing and over/ wrongly design. (ditto me being the ignorant client)

 

 

[JohnMo]

1 hour ago, Indy said:

Jury is still out whether heat pumps are as effective as gas boilers at keeping your house warm.

Thought they came back some years ago, and said it does. 

 

I like it that only pay 2-3p per kWh, compared to gas at about 10p after efficiency hit, by the same

1 hour ago, Indy said:

builder/plumber population

for using S and Y plan plumbing, plus you pay another standing charge.

 

I started looking for an ASHP immediately after the completion cert was issued, self installed soon after. Mine lives behind the shed.

[marshian]

5 hours ago, saveasteading said:

* I have discussed with plenty. Some bluff and perhaps exaggerate the little they do know, but some honestly say what they know and what  they don't.  But others talk the buzz words without actually understanding.

In such discussions they generally assume I am an ignorant punter, and so I let them do their thing for a while.

 

I remember when my Viessmann Gas Boiler was being installed and the "heating engineer" explained the weather compensation curve - he didn't understand it at all and got very flustered when I explained it to him as clearly a customer shouldn't have more understanding than a heating engineer.....

 

But I should have realised when I got an S Plan set up and not DHWP (X-Plan) which I'd asked for (He did rectify that once I pointed out what he'd agreed to)

 

It's quite sad...........

 

 

[Dillsue]

14 hours ago, Indy said:

4. Jury is still out whether heat pumps are as effective as gas boilers at keeping your house warm. I know this site has an over representation of people who have one and can geek out over the details - a large part of the builder/plumber population still don't seem to rate them very highly. The advice from my builder was why go for one when it's potentially not as good and more expensive to install.

You don't need to be a geek to install and set up a HP- it's basic physics. HPs are proven technology over a century old.

 

The trouble with the plumbing/building industry is there's no incentive to change. Your builders advice was flawed as changing things he's always done comes with risk to him so he advises wrongly to hopefully avoid a perceived risk. If the plumbers your builder uses had embraced HPs with training and experience, the builders perception and advice would likely be different. Unfortunately there's  incentive for those plumbers to change.

[Indy]

I'm not arguing against what has been quoted above - but they somewhat do prove the point I was trying to make. Having done my own research, I know HPs do work.

 

However, trying to find an installer who won't rip you off, trying to convince the council that we're actually trying to do the right thing based on their guidance and still being asked to jump through extra hoops, trying to convince neighbours that the HP is exactly 1.00m or more (we were 1.01m) from our boundary to comply with regulation (I think this has now been relaxed somewhat), and trying to convince the wife that the huge unit outdoors is a good idea - these were just too many battles I chose not to fight in the end, when I already have to make another thousand decisions on a weekly basis.  

[PhilT]

https://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/four-reasons-why-scrapping-the-boiler-upgrade-scheme-would-leave-the-uks-energy-policy-in-disarray/

[Mr Punter]

I would rather see the cost of electricity reduced by scrapping green levies, high standing charges and reduce the link to wholesale gas price.

[Dillsue]

19 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

I would rather see the cost of electricity reduced by scrapping green levies, high standing charges and reduce the link to wholesale gas price.

Won't cheaper prices mean more consumption requiring more levies/taxes to build more wind turbines, solar farms, nuclear plants, battery banks, CCGT+CCS etc??

[Beelbeebub]

7 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

Won't cheaper prices mean more consumption requiring more levies/taxes to build more wind turbines, solar farms, nuclear plants, battery banks, CCGT+CCS etc??

Windfarms, solar panels etc aren't built by government subsidies.

 

They get a guaranteed price per Mwh for providing a certain capacity.

 

Originally that was higher than a new gas plant would get. So sort of a subsidy 

 

But now the price per Mwh for a wine farm is lower than that for a gas plant. So investors pile money into wind and solar 

[PhilT]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

Windfarms, solar panels etc aren't built by government subsidies.

UK renewable energy subsidies cost approximately £25.8 billion per year according to research by the Renewable Energy Foundation https://ref.org.uk/blog

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, PhilT said:

Renewable Energy Foundation

Well known organisation for pro renewables and accurate reporting.

 

Much of the problem is in the terminology. Grants, Guarantees, Subsidies, Tax Rebates, Curtailment Payments.

 

But if £26bn is correct, that is about £400/person in the UK, which seems quite high to me at, or about 17p/kWh (for the 152 MWh RE last year).

 

 

 

[Beelbeebub]

40 minutes ago, PhilT said:

UK renewable energy subsidies cost approximately £25.8 billion per year according to research by the Renewable Energy Foundation https://ref.org.uk/blog

That article seems to make some pretty bold assumptions to get those figures.

 

The fact is that the current price paid per Mwh of new wind/solar is lower than the price paid per Mwh of new CCGT and still investors are preferring renewables.  This indicates the returns for providing a Mwh of renewables are better than that of doing it via gas even at the lower price.

 

 

[Beelbeebub]

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10505/CBP-10505.pdf

 

Up to date, thorough and legally required to be non-partisan.

 

HoC library stuff is about the gold standard for information on politically tricky stuff.  Almost every other report from an "institute" of "research center" will have some sort of bias or spin. Some will still be fairly good but some are rabidly partisan and it is a common trick (especially amongst the right leaning ones) to name their think tanks to sound left leaning eg "the institute for renewable energy studies" or "foundation for energy transition research"  and then pump out lots of anti stories that sound more balanced because they "look even a renewables think tank says wind energy is rubbish" 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10505/CBP-10505.pdf

Thanks

 

This is the salient point.

Seems the Low Carbon cost is 56 quids, so less than the individual prices for Distribution, Transmission and the the Operating Costs.

A £ a week.

 

[Beelbeebub]

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Thanks

 

This is the salient point.

Seems the Low Carbon cost is 56 quids, so less than the individual prices for Distribution, Transmission and the the Operating Costs.

A £ a week.

 

The die hard anti renewable zealot will include as "cost of net zero" things like the distribution network costs even though not all of them are due to renewables. Some are simply due to the need to renew and upgrade 50 year old infrastructure.