Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) applications increased by 49% year-on-year (YoY) in December 2023 following a month of “record” number of grants paid in November.
According to the latest UK government BUS statistics, a total of 1,3178 applications were received in December over all technology types – 49% more than the 924 received in December 2022.
Introduced in 2022, the BUS initially offered a £5,000 grant for households looking to install an air source heat pump (ASHP) or biomass boiler, £6,000 for a ground source heat pump (GSHP).
The two heat pump grants were then increased to £7,500 from 23 October 2023, and an overall funding pot increase of £1.5 billion added to the initially committed £45 million.
November was the first full month following the grant increase and contributed to a “record number of grants” paid that month (1,903), 43% more than were paid in December (1,085) however the government noted that this difference could be partly administrative as December 2023 only saw three weeks of payments compared to four in November.
Consumer enthusiasm for heat pumps was illustrated by the jump in new BUS applications from October, as illustrated below.
Sep 23 | Oct 23 | Nov 23 | Dec 23 | |
BUS applications received | 1,231 | 3,355 | 2,557 | 1,378 |
A regional breakdown of total grants paid showed that the largest number of installations were at properties in the South West (3,709), followed by the South East (3,608), with the fewest number of grants in the North East region (523), whilst Wales accounted for 6% of the total grants paid (1,113 grants)
Favouring ASHPs
Up until the end of December 2023, a total of 31,378 BUS voucher applications had been received, with 96% of these being for an ASHP.
Spencer Clark, head of residential business unit of the conglomerate Daikin UK, said that the BUS statistics showed that UK households favoured ASHP as a low-carbon heat technology.
“It’s clear that UK homeowners favour air source heat pumps to decarbonise their home heating, with over 30,100 of the funding applications made through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) between May 2022 and December 2023, marked for air source heat pumps. That’s more than 95% of all applications made through the BUS over this period, with the majority of the other 5% submitted for ground source heat pumps,” said Clark.
Clarke also noted that pushing back the deadline to banning oil and LPG boilers to 2035, alongside the cancellations of landlord energy efficiency targets will “have a severe impact in the mid-term.”
“This is only going to make hitting the 2050 net zero target harder and, most likely, more expensive for households – especially as the government continues to ignore the electricity levy, still favouring fossil fuels from a tax perspective,” Clarke added.