Statistics from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) show that October 2024 saw the most grants paid under the boiler upgrade scheme (BUS) since it began.
With 2,991 grants paid during October, the total number of payments made under the BUS has reached 37,417. The number of redemption applications in October 2024 across all technology types reached 2,730, another record amount that was a 27% increase on the previous month of 2,152.
The total number of applications for BUS vouchers during October 2024 was 3,857, a 20% increase on the previous month and 15% higher than October 2023. This is of particular note because October 2023 has long held the record for voucher applications after the government announced in September 2023 that it would increase grant levels.
September 2024 was previously the best month on record for the scheme, excepting October 2023.
Up until the end of October 2024, a total of 50,428 vouchers were issued. There was a 27% increase on the previous month, and there were more than double the number of new vouchers issued compared to the same month in the previous year 3,445 in October 2024 compared to 1,557 in October 2023. The number of vouchers issued in October 2024 is the highest on record.
Those figures compare well with the total number of voucher applications, which by the end of October 2024 had reached 58,952. The majority of these (97%) were for air source heat pumps. According to DESNZ figures, the median cost of an air source heat pump since the start of the scheme has been £13,000 and a ground source heat pump costs £25,000, both including the grant value.
At the beginning of October, energy secretary Ed Miliband permitted Ofgem, which oversees the scheme, to overallocate BUS vouchers by up to £50 million in this financial year, to a total of £200 million.
The move is intended to provide certainty that vouchers will continue to be available for the remainder of the financial year. Still, the Clean Heat Market Mechanism (CHMM) – which would require heat pump installations to make up a 4% equivalent of manufacturer gas boiler sales in the first year, before increasing to 6% in the mechanism’s second year – is still confined to the distant future.
With an initial launch date expected to be 1 April 2024, the scheme’s implementation was called into question, however, when multiple reports cited fears over a ‘boiler tax’ unwittingly caused by the scheme. This would not be the result of the mechanism, rather price hikes on the behalf of manufacturers.
The government’s Autumn budget promised another uptick in BUS funding as part of a broader £3.4 billion commitment across the next three years towards domestic energy efficiency improvements and decarbonisation.
