How Welsh Homes Are Heated

Wales is a gas-heated country, but less uniformly than England, and the exceptions matter. The Welsh Housing Conditions Survey found that 82% of dwellings in Wales used gas to heat their homes, over the period April 2017 to March 2018¹. Heating oil was the second most common fuel, concentrated in rural areas the gas network never reached². Heat pumps remain rare: 1.5% of Welsh properties with an Energy Performance Certificate had one as of March 2025³, though the total number installed has been climbing quickly, reaching around 22,000 by 2023⁴.

The direction of travel is set by policy. The Welsh Government has a target of installing 580,000 heat pumps in Wales by 2035⁴, and its Heat Strategy for Wales states that "Individual heat pumps are expected to be the dominant solution for homes in Wales"⁵. The Climate Change Committee advises that by 2033, nearly a quarter of existing homes in Wales should be heated by low-carbon electrified heating, predominately heat pumps⁶. Against a current base of 22,000, that is a very large gap to close in under a decade.

Heat is also the biggest single demand on Welsh energy. Approximately 40% of the energy used in Wales provides heat to homes, businesses and industry⁷, and domestic heat use alone was 15.7 TWh in 2019⁸. This page sets out the figures behind those statements, what drives them, how Wales compares with the other UK nations, the rules that apply, and what it all means for a household trying to be less dependent on fuel suppliers.

The heating figures for Wales

The headline picture comes from the Welsh Housing Conditions Survey: 82% of dwellings used gas to heat their homes, and the Welsh Housing Quality Standard programme reports that 98% of homes now have central heating¹. The remaining homes are heated by a mix of oil, electricity and other fuels. Across England and Wales as a whole, 3.5% of households used heating oil as their sole source of heating at the 2021 and 2022 censuses¹⁰, and more than 860,000 homes in England and Wales rely on heating oil¹¹. In Wales specifically, roughly 28% of rural homes use oil as their primary heating source¹¹.

Heat pump numbers are measured in several ways, and they tell different stories. The count of installed units comes from the Welsh Government's renewable energy statistics: approximately 6,900 new heat pumps were installed in Wales in 2023, bringing the total to 22,000⁴. The proportion of homes is lower still: among properties with an EPC, 1.5% in Wales have heat pumps, and even in detached properties, the best-served type, the figure is 3.0%³. At the other end of the market, only 3% of new dwellings in England and Wales used heat pumps for central heating in the financial year ending 2019¹².

Government-supported installations, tracked quarterly, show the recent pace. In 2024, Wales recorded 1,786 government-supported heat pump installations in the first quarter, 1,803 in the second, 1,617 in the third and 1,484 in the fourth¹³. These are installations supported by UK government schemes, so they understate total activity, but they show a steady flow of roughly 1,500 to 1,800 per quarter rather than the surge the 2035 target implies.

The scale of the task is set by the Heat Strategy for Wales, which estimates domestic investment of £56.7bn to 2050, split across roughly 223,000 social homes, 231,000 private rented homes and 895,000 owner-occupied homes⁵. Set against the 22,000 heat pumps installed by 2023, the 580,000 target for 2035 requires installations to run at many times the recent rate for the next decade⁴.

What drives the figures

Three things shape how Wales heats its homes: the geography of the gas network, the age and construction of the housing stock, and the history of public support schemes.

The gas network does not cover rural Wales, so homes beyond it burn oil. Roughly 28% of rural homes in Wales use heating oil as their primary heating source¹¹, and across England and Wales more than 860,000 homes rely on it¹¹. These are the households most exposed to bulk fuel prices and delivery, and the checks that apply to that market.

The housing stock's energy efficiency drives both fuel use and fuel poverty. A parliamentary inquiry noted that 60% of non-gas heated homes in Wales were rated F or G on the energy efficiency scale². That pattern has eased over time: improved energy efficiency led to an estimated 37% decrease in average energy consumption required to maintain a satisfactory heating regime between 2008 and 2018¹⁶, and the Warm Homes Programme invested more than £366m and improved the energy efficiency of more than 61,400 homes in Wales by the end of March 2020¹⁶.

Public support has also shaped the current mix, and the next round of it is designed to change direction. The successor to the Warm Homes Programme takes what the Welsh Government calls a "fabric, worst and low carbon first approach" aimed at the least thermally efficient low-income households¹⁷, and the Heat Strategy commits the government to "prioritise low carbon heat as part of the next iteration of the Warm Homes Implementation Programme to support households in fuel poverty in owner-occupied and private rented homes"⁵.

How Wales compares with the other UK nations

On heat pumps, Wales has moved from the margins to a substantial share of UK government-supported installations. Wales accounted for 6% of government-supported heat pump installations in the year ending June 2019, compared with 19% in the year ending June 2024¹³. A later release gives the comparison as 6% in the year ending September 2019 against 18% in the year ending September 2024¹⁴. Wales punches above its population share on this measure, helped by Welsh Government schemes alongside UK-wide ones.

The census-based statistics for England and Wales, published by the Office for National Statistics, cover the main fuel type used in central heating and heat pump use across both nations¹⁸, and the ONS energy efficiency series covers dwellings, estimated CO2 emissions and central heating fuel type for England and Wales²⁰. For the fuller picture of how the four nations' energy systems differ, see home energy across the UK nations.

One point of difference with the UK Government concerns money for oil households. The Welsh Government engaged with the UK Government to ensure that funding for Wales, for households that use oil for heating and hot water, is based on the number of households using heating oil rather than on the Barnett formula²¹.

The rules that govern home heating in Wales

Heating policy in Wales is a mix of devolved and reserved powers. Heat and cooling networks, and schemes providing incentives to generate heat from sources other than fossil fuel or nuclear fuel, together with the encouragement of energy efficiency otherwise than by prohibition or regulation, are devolved matters to Wales¹⁶. The regulation of those networks, and the gas and electricity markets themselves, are not. The split is explained in devolved and reserved energy powers.

Building rules are devolved and have been tightened. From 2022, Part L changes for new dwellings in Wales require improved fabric, air tightness tests for all new homes, and self-regulating devices in the notional specification, alongside requirements for PV and wastewater heat recovery²². Part O requires that "Dwellings shall be designed and constructed in such a way as to provide reasonable mitigation from the risk of summertime overheating"²². The most consequential rule was announced in 2022: "by 2025, there will be no gas connections in new build homes in Wales to support decarbonisation efforts"⁷.

Fuel poverty rules define what a home must be able to achieve. A "satisfactory heating regime" for households with older or disabled people is 23°C in the living room and 18°C in other rooms, achieved for 16 hours in a 24-hour period²³. For other households, it is 21°C in the living room and 18°C in other rooms for nine hours in every 24-hour period on weekdays, and 16 hours in a 24-hour period on weekends²³. These temperatures are the benchmark against which Welsh fuel poverty is measured, and 14% of Welsh households were in fuel poverty in 2021⁶. The definition and the strategy behind it are covered in fuel poverty in Wales.

Support for heating improvements in Wales

Welsh households have access to a set of schemes that is distinct from those in England, reflecting the devolution of energy efficiency encouragement.

• Warm Homes Nest. The scheme provides all householders in Wales with access to advice and support to reduce their energy bills, and eligible householders can be referred for "a package of free home energy efficiency measures such as a new boiler, central heating system, loft or cavity wall insulation, or renewable technologies"²⁴.
• Warm Homes Programme. Funding for home energy efficiency improvements goes to low income households and those living in deprived communities across Wales²⁵, with £104m announced to heat some of Wales' most vulnerable households²⁵.
• New Warm Homes Programme. The successor scheme takes a demand-led approach to support all households across Wales with advice to improve energy efficiency, reducing fuel bills and carbon emissions²⁶, built on the fabric, worst and low carbon first principle¹⁷.
• Green Homes Wales. Run through the Development Bank of Wales, the scheme helps eligible homeowners in Wales make energy-efficiency and low carbon heat improvements, "whether that's installing a heat pump, upgrading their insulation, or modernising their heating system"²⁷.
• Heat Fund. A £4m fund announced in 2022 to help people with soaring fuel costs was expected to help an estimated 2,000 households across Wales²⁹.
• Fuel Support Scheme. Extended to more than 400,000 low-income households in Wales, each eligible for a £200 payment to help keep their home warm, after £90m of funding³⁰.

The pattern across these schemes is advice for everyone, measures for those on low incomes, and a growing emphasis on low carbon heat rather than replacement fossil boilers. Why the grants differ from nation to nation is explained in why energy grants differ by nation.

Renewable heat: a small base growing fast

Renewable heat in Wales is small but growing quickly, and it is dominated by a few large biomass installations rather than by homes.

At the end of 2021, Wales had 742 MW of renewable heat capacity installed, producing an estimated 2.42 TWh of renewable heat in 2021³¹. Of that capacity, 63% came from biomass heat and 16% from heat pumps³¹. Almost 29 MW of new renewable heat capacity was commissioned in 2021, from 2,210 individual projects, and approximately 94% of renewable heat projects commissioned in Wales in 2021 were heat pumps, from over 2,000 individual projects³¹. The majority of the new capacity came from 2,073 heat pump projects, adding 21 MW of electrified heat³¹.

By 2023 the picture had grown: 67 MW of new renewable heat capacity was installed during the year, bringing the total to 869 MW, and Welsh renewable heat projects produced nearly 2.7 TWh in 2023⁴. The regional spread is uneven. Mid Wales accounts for the greatest proportion of renewable heat capacity, at 32%, followed closely by North Wales at 31%, with the Cardiff Capital and Swansea Bay city regions at 18% each³¹. A later release puts Mid Wales and North Wales at 31% each⁴.

For households, the relevant number is the heat pump count: 22,067 projects in Wales as of 2023⁴. The gap between that and the 580,000 target for 2035 defines the next decade of Welsh heating policy⁴. Wales' renewable energy targets more broadly are covered in Wales' renewable energy targets.

Heating and the independence of a Welsh home

Heating is where a Welsh household's energy dependence is concentrated. Approximately 40% of the energy used in Wales provides heat⁸, and energy consumption for heat in Wales is more than four times the consumption of electricity³¹. A home heated by gas depends on the gas network and a supplier; a home heated by oil depends on deliveries, bulk fuel pricing and the checks that apply to it, a market that Trading Standards has flagged as exposed by cost of living pressures and soaring prices¹¹.

The Welsh Government's long-term vision is explicit: "Homes are thermally-efficient and served in the main by heat pumps, a whole building approach has been taken to the transition"⁵. A heat pump shifts a home from imported fossil fuel to electricity, which in Wales is increasingly generated renewably within the country. That reduces dependence on gas and oil but does not eliminate dependence on the grid, an electricity supplier and the manufacturers of the equipment. The devolution and energy independence page sets out which levers the Welsh Government actually holds.

There is also a distinctly Welsh opportunity in the heating map. The Welsh Government has published a mine water heat opportunity map, and notes that the legacy of Welsh coal mines, key to the industrial revolution, could heat homes in future³². Heating accounted for 50% of energy use in Wales in the announcement of that work³². Whether mine water heat networks reach ordinary homes is unproven, but the direction is clear: heat in Wales is planned to become electric, efficient and increasingly locally sourced.

For an individual household, the practical reading of the numbers is this. Gas remains the default and will for years. Oil households, mostly in rural areas beyond the gas network, face the biggest change and the biggest cost, and are the most exposed to fuel price swings today. The support schemes exist, the targets are written, and the gap between 22,000 installed heat pumps and 580,000 by 2035 is the measure of how much must happen in the next decade⁴.