The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published a press release on 27 August 2026 stating that thousands of households on heating oil have applied for a heat pump, taking advantage of the £9,000 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant1.
The department's own summary of the development reads:
"Thousands of households on heating oil have applied for a heat pump, taking advantage of the £9,000 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant."
The figure of £9,000 is the grant amount cited by the department for these households1. The release does not break the applications down by nation, by property type or by the date on which they were submitted, and no separate total for heating oil applicants has been reported1.
Heating oil households are among those without a mains gas connection, a group that has historically been outside the reach of gas boiler replacement programmes. The grant amount available under the scheme is set out separately from the eligibility rules, and the application process runs through installers rather than directly from the household1. The department has not said in this release how many of the applications have converted into vouchers, nor how many installations have been completed1.
The same departmental page lists other domestic energy measures, including a 26 August 2026 press release on plug-in solar panels becoming legal to use and buy, and a 26 August 2026 news story on a VAT cut on household electricity bills1. Those items are separate from the heat pump announcement and no figures linking them to the heating oil applications have been reported1.
Why it matters for households
For a home off the gas grid, heating oil is bought in bulk and its price moves with the wider oil market, so the cost of warmth is set outside the household's control between deliveries. A heat pump shifts that running cost onto electricity, which is subject to the price cap and to the VAT treatment described separately by the department1. The £9,000 figure is large relative to the cost of a typical oil boiler replacement, which is the practical reason the department presents the scheme as a route for these households1.
Energy independence at the level of an individual home turns on whether the heating system can run from a supply the household can influence, and on how much of the heat it needs the fabric of the building retains. The department has not published, in this release, any assessment of running costs for oil-to-heat-pump conversions, any figure for how much a household might save, or any detail on insulation or EPC requirements attached to these applications1. Uptake numbers by technology and by voucher status are published separately in the Boiler Upgrade Scheme statistics1.
What happens next
No next steps, deadlines or further announcements are given in the release1. The department's listing shows a heat pump deployment statistics release dated 10 September 2026, which is later than the press release and may carry the underlying figures, but no content from it is reported here1.