Energy grants for your home

Support is available to help you pay your energy bills, including grants and offers to help cover the initial cost of installing energy efficient features in your home. 

The average household could be wasting hundreds of pounds each year because their property isn't energy efficient. 

You may also be spending more money than you need to if you’re eligible for help paying your gas and electricity bills. Making your home more efficient will make it cheaper to run over time, and the changes can help make it feel cosier too.

Here's the lowdown on how the different schemes work and whether you qualify for them.

Cut your energy bills by following our tips for 10 ways to save on energy bills.

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Help paying your gas and electricity bills

• The Warm Home Discount gives £150 each year, mainly to pensioners and people who receive certain benefits.
• The Winter Fuel Payment contributes towards your winter heating costs if you receive Pension Credit or other benefits.
• If winter is particularly cold, some households in England and Wales can get the £25 Cold Weather Payment for each week that it’s below zero degrees.
• In Scotland, the Winter Heating Payment gives £59 to qualifying households this year. 
• Fuel Direct can help you manage your energy bills if you get Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Universal Credit or Pension Credit.

Even if none of these initiatives apply to you, other help may be available from your supplier. Find out more about the help available if you're struggling to pay your energy bills.

Free insulation and energy efficiency grants from energy suppliers

The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) provides grants for energy efficiency measures such as cavity wall insulation and loft insulation.

You might also be able to get help with upgrading your heating system. 

The ECO grants are provided by energy suppliers, rather than the government. The biggest companies have to take part in the scheme.

Grants are mainly aimed at low-income or fuel-poor households and those in vulnerable situations. However, the eligibility criteria for ECO are quite complex. 

The Great British Insulation Scheme, also called ECO+, should offer 100,000s more grants to fund insulation for homes that have low energy efficiency ratings and are in lower council tax bands.

To find out if you could qualify, check the Simple Energy Advice website or call Home Energy Scotland on 0808 808 2282. Find out more about how it works in our ECO guide. 

How much money could energy efficiency measures save you?

There are many ways to save energy and money in your home. Some, such as draught proofing and fitting energy-saving light bulbs, are cheap and easy to do. 

Loft insulation and cavity wall insulation are relatively straightforward to install and will yield big savings. Solid wall insulation is more expensive, but the long-term savings can be even greater. 

Here are the estimated savings per year for different types of insulation:

If your home is already well insulated but you have an old boiler at the end of its life, you can make considerable energy bill savings by upgrading it to a modern condensing boiler with a programmer, room thermostat and thermostatic radiator controls. 

We don't recommend replacing an old boiler until it needs to be replaced, as it's so pricey, but once you do you'll find your heating is cheaper to run. 

Draught proofing around windows and doors could save a GB household around £40 a year, while draught proofing an out-of-use open chimney could save £55 a year, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

Read our guide to how to make your home more energy efficient for more tips.

Other ways to save money on energy

As well as getting help to install energy efficiency measures to help cut your energy use, it's worth checking that you’re on the best-value energy tariff for you too. 

You can search for energy tariffs using our energy comparison service. Use our ratings and expert advice to help you choose the right energy tariff for you. 

Use our home energy planning service

Our home energy planning service gives you the know-how to make the right decisions for improving the energy efficiency of your home according to your situation.

Using data accessed through your address, the service shows you real information about your home, helps you decide on the improvements you could make and gives you ballpark costs and an idea of what you could save on your energy bills. It also checks for available grants, provides information on ways to pay and can help you find trusted installers to do the work.

The estimated costs and savings are based on your property type, size, age and location and on assumptions about the number of people living there and their energy usage, using data from Energy Saving Trust.  

Try it out: start making energy efficient changes to your own home with our free home energy planning service.

Earn cash for generating renewable energy

Installing energy-generating technologies, such as solar panels, is something you should only consider after you've made your home as energy efficient as possible. 

The upfront costs of installing generation at home can be high. But the Smart Export Guarantee can pay for the electricity you generate at home and export, while the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) helps to offset the initial expense of installing renewable heating. 

These schemes support renewable technologies including solar panels,  ground-source heat pumps and air-source heat pumps.

What was the Green Homes Grant?

The Green Homes Grant Scheme was a government grant for homeowners in England to help pay for some energy-efficient home improvements. 

Grants were for up to £5,000 (or £10,000 if you received certain benefits) and meant to pay at least two thirds of the cost of energy-saving renovations including:

• Double glazing
• Energy efficient doors
• Hot water tank thermostat or appliance thermostat
• Smart heating controls and thermostatic radiator valvues (TRVs)
• Draught proofing

The Green Homes Grant launched in September 2020 and closed to new applications in March 2021.

What was the Green Deal?

The Green Deal was a government scheme that gave loans for energy-saving home improvements. It closed in 2015.

If you took out a Green Deal Loan you'll be repaying it through your electricity bills. Loans typically last between 10 and 25 years.

If you sell your home you must tell the buyer about your Green Deal loan. That's because the person who pays the electricity bill pays it back, so it would pass to them. If they're not comfortable with this the buyer might want to renegotiate the terms of sale or you could consider repaying the Green Deal early as part of your conveyance.

If you move into a property with a Green Deal, the landlord or seller must show you a copy of the Energy Performance Certificate - this will explain what improvements have been made and how much you'll need to repay.