Boiler Upgrade Scheme Annual Report - April 2023 to March 2024
Reports, plans and updates
- Publication date
- Scheme name
- BUS
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) launched on 23 May 2022 to support the decarbonisation of heat in buildings. It provides upfront capital grants towards the cost of installing approved heat pumps and, in limited circumstances, biomass boilers in homes and small non-domestic buildings in England and Wales. Changing the way we heat our homes and businesses, by replacing fossil fuel and direct electric heating systems with lower carbon alternatives, is essential to reach net zero and the BUS has played an important role in supporting this.
As part of our statutory responsibilities administering the scheme, we have produced this annual report to provide an update on activity during Scheme Year 2 from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.
Please note: For those wishing to look at the data used in the report in more detail, a spreadsheet with this information is published below.
Voucher summary
During Scheme Year 2, we received 22,111 BUS applications, rejected 1,479 that failed our eligibility checks, and a further 1,549 applications were withdrawn by the applicant.
After completion of our pre-installation eligibility checks we issued a total of 18,772 vouchers during Scheme Year 2 worth over £122 million.
13,997 vouchers were redeemed in Scheme Year 2, but a further 2,128 expired before they were redeemed.
Analysis of grants paid
During BUS Scheme Year 2 we paid grants worth £88,821,500, supporting the installation of 13,904 low carbon heating systems. This brings the total value of grants paid since the start of the scheme to £138,925,500, supporting 23,875 low carbon heating systems.
Over 96% of grants paid were for air source heat pumps and around 72% were for the replacement of fossil fuelled heating systems, like gas boilers.
1,286 installers are registered under the BUS and the top ten installers (by application volumes) are responsible for almost 25% of all grant applications received.
Monitoring compliance
More than 1,000 applications were audited in Scheme Year 2 (targeted and random) with an initial compliance rate of 90.6%. Note that following an audit, where possible, we instruct the applicant to take corrective action. As such some of those initially assessed as being non-compliant may subsequently be brought into compliance.
We also closed 546 compliance investigations in Scheme Year 2, of which 158 (29%) were found to be non-compliant. The compliance action we took in Year 2 resulted in £894,000 of public funds being protected or identified for recovery.