Closed Home Energy Grants Householders Still Search For

A closed scheme is not the same as a finished one. Several of the grant and payment schemes that householders still search for have stopped taking new applicants but continue to pay the households already inside them, sometimes for years. The Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive closed to new applicants at midnight on 31 March 2022, yet Ofgem has paid almost £1.2 billion in support since the scheme began in 2014 and expects to keep paying until the last participant completes their seven-year support period in March 2029¹. The Feed-in Tariffs scheme closed to new applications on 1 April 2019 and still generates quarterly statistics on accredited installations³.

Others have simply ended. The Green Homes Grant voucher scheme opened in September 2020 and closed to new applications at 5pm on 31 March 2021, having aimed to enable up to 600,000 households to save up to £600 on their energy bills⁵. The Home Upgrade Grant ended in March 2025⁸. The Green Deal loan scheme is closed⁸. The Great British Insulation Scheme is not a grant at all, and runs only until 31 March 2026⁹.

This page is an index of those schemes: what each one did, when it stopped, what replaced it where anything did, and what remains for a household that arrives at a dead scheme name through a search. It covers all four nations, because the closures do not line up across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The short answer: closed to new applicants, not always finished

Most of the scheme names that still draw searches are closed to new applicants, and the pattern of closure is uneven. The Green Homes Grant voucher scheme provided grants to homeowners and landlords to make energy efficient improvements to homes in England, ran between September 2020 and March 2021, and is now closed⁵. The Home Upgrade Grant, which served off-gas homes, ended in March 2025⁸. Green Deal loans are closed⁸. The Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive in Great Britain has now closed, and only applications following a change of ownership can be made¹.

What replaced them is not a like-for-like successor in every case. In England, the Warm Homes: Local Grant is a government-funded scheme delivered by local authorities that provides grants for energy performance upgrades and low carbon heating to low-income households living in the worst quality, privately owned homes, with the aim of achieving energy bill savings and carbon savings¹³. That is a narrower, more targeted instrument than the Green Homes Grant voucher, which was open to homeowners and landlords generally.

In Scotland, the Home Energy Scotland Scheme offers grants to homeowners to install heat pumps, and the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme provides grants and loans to all domestic owner-occupiers in Scotland to install clean heat and energy efficiency measures¹⁴. In Wales, Green Homes Wales offers access to grant funding alongside loans for specific energy efficiency measures, reducing out-of-pocket expenses¹⁶. Northern Ireland is not covered by the Great Britain-wide schemes described here, and the statistics on government-supported energy efficiency schemes are explicitly for Great Britain¹⁷.

The practical answer for a household searching a dead scheme name is that the name is a dead end, but the need it addressed may still be met by a different route. The sections below set out which routes remain.

The figures: dates, totals and the size of each gap

The figures that matter for closed schemes are mostly dates, totals and the size of the gap each closure left.

The Domestic RHI is the largest by money. It was introduced in England, Scotland and Wales in April 2014 and closed to new applications on 31 March 2022². It paid quarterly amounts over seven years for the estimated low-carbon heat systems were expected to produce, based on the annual heat demand of the property taken from its EPC, except for solar thermal and installations metered for payment². Total support paid since 2014 is almost £1.2 billion, and almost £106.2 million was paid in the past year of the scheme². Installations accredited on the scheme have generated over 10,121.7 GWh of low-carbon heat².

The Green Homes Grant is the largest by ambition. It aimed to enable up to 600,000 households to save up to £600 on their energy bills⁷. Its Local Authority Delivery arm was intended to support retrofit measures improving energy efficiency and increasing low carbon heating in circa 50,000 low-income households⁶.

The Feed-in Tariffs scheme is the longest-running. It was introduced on 1 April 2010 and closed to new applications from 1 April 2019, with all pathways for accreditation now closed³. Ofgem's quarterly statistics cover the period from 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2026⁴.

What drives a scheme to close

Closure is driven by three things: budget exhaustion, scheme redesign, and the shift from subsidy to obligation.

The Green Homes Grant is the clearest case of a scheme that did not deliver what it promised. The National Audit Office reported that the scheme aimed to enable up to 600,000 households to save up to £600 on their energy bills, and the Public Accounts Committee took evidence on its performance⁶. The scheme closed to new applications from 5pm on 31 March 2021, well inside its intended window⁶.

Redesign drives others. The Clean Heat Grant scheme and the Green Gas Support Scheme were both proposed to incentivise the cost effective installation of low carbon heat technologies and the generation of renewable heat¹⁸. The Clean Heat Grant was expected to be available GB-wide, subject to the consent of UK and Scottish Ministers¹⁹. That is the lineage that leads to the current Boiler Upgrade Scheme rather than to a revived voucher scheme.

The shift from grant to obligation is the third driver. The Great British Insulation Scheme is not a grant scheme; it is an obligation on medium and large energy companies to deliver measures that result in reduced energy usage⁹. It is up to the energy companies to determine which retrofit projects they choose to fund and the level of funding they provide, depending on the measure type and other factors⁹. Funding for measures delivered under the scheme cannot be blended with funding from other government schemes or grants, including the Warm Home Discount, Home Upgrade Grant, Boiler Upgrade Scheme, Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and ECO4¹⁰.

That non-blending rule is one of the most consequential details for a household. It means a measure funded through one route cannot be topped up from another, so the choice of scheme is exclusive at the measure level.

How the closures differ across the four nations

The closures do not align, and the administering bodies differ.

In England, the Green Homes Grant was a government grant aimed at assisting homeowners with energy-efficient and low carbon improvements, and it was England-only²⁰. The Warm Homes: Local Grant now covers England, delivered by local authorities, and its statistics monitor the installation of energy efficiency measures in domestic properties in England¹³. The Home Upgrade Grant, which ended in March 2025, also served England⁸.

In Scotland, the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme provides grants and loans to all domestic owner-occupiers in Scotland to install clean heat and energy efficiency measures¹⁵. The Scottish Central Government Energy Efficiency Grant scheme is targeted at public bodies with no borrowing powers, has not been funding new measures since January 2024, and its funding is due to end in 2026²¹. Between 2021 and 2023 that scheme supported around 350 energy efficiency measures and nearly 170 renewables and clean heat measures²¹. Energy Saving Trust was awarded a contract from 1 December 2023 to administer and manage Scottish Government heat and energy efficiency live and closed grant and loan schemes²². Area Based Schemes provide home owners and landlords with access to grant funding that meets the Scottish Government's future minimum energy efficiency standards²³.

In Wales, Green Homes Wales offers access to grant funding alongside loans for specific energy efficiency measures¹⁶. The Domestic RHI, which covered Great Britain, had 75.1% of installations in England, 18.0% in Scotland and 6.9% in Wales². Household penetration was highest in Scotland at 0.8% of households, 0.6% in Wales and 0.4% in England².

Northern Ireland sits outside the Great Britain-wide schemes. The annual statistics on government-supported energy efficiency schemes cover Great Britain, not the UK as a whole¹⁷. Households there should look to the Northern Ireland routes rather than to the closed GB schemes.

The rules: who could apply, when the door shut, what continues

The rules that govern closed schemes fall into three groups: who could apply, when the door shut, and what continues afterwards.

On eligibility, the Domestic RHI covered single domestic properties and was open to owner-occupiers, private landlords, social landlords and self-builders¹⁷. The Green Homes Grant voucher scheme provided grants to homeowners and landlords for domestic properties in England¹¹. The Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme is open to all domestic owner-occupiers in Scotland¹⁵.

On closure dates, the record is precise. The Green Homes Grant closed to new applications from 5pm on 31 March 2021⁶. The Non-Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive in Great Britain closed to new applicants at the end of midnight on 31 March 2021²⁰. The Domestic RHI closed to new applicants, including metering and monitoring service package applications, at midnight on 31 March 2022¹². The Feed-in Tariffs scheme closed to new applications from 1 April 2019³.

On what continues, the Domestic RHI is the fullest example. Every year, participants are asked to complete and submit an annual declaration confirming they continue to meet the ongoing obligations¹. Once an accreditation has been granted the tariff rate is secured and will change each year in line with inflation but will never decrease². Applications accredited up to 31 March 2016 are adjusted annually by the Retail Prices Index, and applications accredited after that date by the Consumer Prices Index². Ofgem administers the scheme and will contact participants on behalf of DESNZ¹.

For the Feed-in Tariffs scheme, only the owner of the installation or those who have been assigned FIT Payment rights may complain or raise a dispute, although non-owners may still make certain information requests²⁴. Deployment caps placed limits on the total capacity that could receive a particular tariff rate in a particular tariff period, with quarterly tariff periods for solar photovoltaic, wind, hydro and anaerobic digestion installations and six-monthly periods for micro CHP²⁴.

What closed schemes mean for household energy independence

Closed schemes matter to household energy independence because they set the terms on which a home can reduce its reliance on bought energy, and because their closure removes a route that many households were counting on.

The Domestic RHI is the clearest case of a scheme that bought lasting change. A total of 78,553 boilers using fossil fuels were replaced by lower carbon alternatives under the scheme, and 95.8% of the 82,000 replaced boilers used fossil fuels such as oil, gas, coal and LPG². Of those replaced boilers, 52.6% used oil, 28.6% gas, 7.8% LPG and 6.8% coal². Replacing an oil boiler is the single most direct step a household can take away from a delivered fuel, and the scheme's own figures show oil was the most common fuel displaced.

The scheme also shows the limits. Heating our homes accounts for around 14% of the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions². The British energy security strategy sets out how Great Britain will accelerate homegrown power for greater energy independence, and describes this as central to weaning Britain off expensive fossil fuels, which are subject to volatile gas prices set by international markets²⁵. A household that installed a heat pump under the Domestic RHI reduced its own exposure to those prices, but it remains connected to the electricity grid and to a supplier.

The Feed-in Tariffs scheme did the same for electricity. It was designed by government to promote the uptake of small-scale renewable and low-carbon electricity generation, and covered England, Wales and Scotland³. Households accredited under it continue to receive payments, but the scheme is closed to new entrants and is expected to wind down by 2039.

What remains for a household arriving at a closed scheme name is a set of live routes rather than a dead end. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme supports heat pumps and biomass. The Energy Company Obligation and ECO4 place obligations on suppliers. The Warm Homes: Local Grant covers England, and the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan covers Scotland. The Home Upgrade Grant page records the closed scheme for off-gas homes, and the Green Homes Grant and Green Deal pages record the other two closures most often searched for.

The dependence that remains after any of these schemes is the same: the grid, a supplier, and for many homes a gas connection or a delivered fuel. A grant changes the equipment in a home; it does not remove the connection.