The Warm Homes Plan is a £15 billion commitment to upgrade and electrify UK homes, cut energy bills and lift one million households out of fuel poverty. Without urgent action to accelerate delivery, the Plan risks stalling just as renewed instability in the Middle East and wider global uncertainty threaten household energy costs.
In this article, EDF's Strategy and Policy team set out why faster delivery of the Warm Homes Plan is essential to cutting energy bills and strengthening UK energy security.
Dan Alchin heads up EDF's policy team focussed on customers and the retail supply market. Prior to EDF Dan worked at Energy UK, the trade association for the energy industry, in a number of senior positions.
Nicola Pope is a Senior Analyst in EDF's Policy and Regulation team, focusing on policy to support the electrification journey for customers. She has previously worked across EDF in various retail policy and B2B roles.
Dan and Nicola argue that while there is a lot to like in the Plan:
- The Warm Homes Plan risks a delivery hiatus as supplier obligations end before new schemes are live
- Local authority delivery alone won't scale fast enough without supplier support
- Energy suppliers are essential to joining up the full electrification journey, not just installation
- Future schemes must learn from what worked and what didn't under the ECO scheme
From policy announcement to delivery challenge
Earlier this year the Government published its long-awaited Warm Homes Plan, a £15 billion programme to upgrade and electrify UK homes and lift one million households out of fuel poverty. The plan represents a significant shift in policy approach at a time where the importance of reducing energy bills and boosting energy security has never been so important for consumers given the potential implications for energy prices arising from the recent events in the Middle East.
Though a combination of grants, low or zero interest loans and regulation the Plan aims to make home energy improvements like solar PV, batteries and heat pumps widely accessible for all.
As a generator of zero carbon electricity and a supplier to five million customers, EDF is committed to delivering an electric Britain. Our mission is to help our customers save cash and carbon. Given the Plan's similar commitment, there's a lot for us to be supportive of.
We must act now and we must all work together to move the Plan off the page and start delivering real change for households through lower bills and reduced carbon. With this in mind we have set out four immediate priorities to help take the Plan forward.
Avoiding another delivery hiatus gap in the Warm Homes Plan or everything else falls down
The Plan confirmed a major policy shift in how we support households: the end of supplier obligations as a funding and delivery method for retrofit, once the current schemes (ECO4 and GBIS) close at the end of this year. This marks a fundamental change in how we fund and deliver warmer homes.
Supplier obligations have been the pre-eminent means of funding and delivering energy efficiency and heating improvements for three decades, providing enduring bill and carbon savings for millions.
It will take time for the new programmes under the Plan to be set up, let alone be delivering at the scale envisioned. The first new low-interest consumer loans under the Plan are unlikely to be made to consumers until 2027. Decisions on the future design of capitals spending programmes are not expected until the end of 2026.
Most suppliers are, however, expected to have met their ECO/GBIS targets by the end of March 2026.
The biggest risk the Warm Homes Plan faces is, therefore, timing. The risk of a slow down or hiatus in delivery this year is very real. We are already seeing installers disappearing from the market. We can't afford to lose more while they grapple with uncertainty. Supply chains weakened now will not be easy - or quick - to rebuild.
Given the ongoing events in the Middle East and the potential knock on impact on energy prices we cannot afford to slow down or stand still, now more than ever is the right time to build on the momentum left by the legacy of supplier obligations, delivering energy bills savings at scale and helping to shield customers from volatile international energy markets when they need it most. Customers can already save on average £530 per year from Solar PV1, this saving would only increase if energy prices were to rise. To ensure this momentum can be maintained, supply chain must be provided with the necessary certainty to continue to deliver at the scale needed.
At the same time, the Plan anticipates a major pivot toward local authority led delivery for low-income households - yet today, local authorities struggle to spend the funding already allocated to them. Around 43% of funding across current schemes goes unused and is returned to Government. Even the best-performing authorities leave around 20% unspent2.
Local authority delivery today is also regionally concentrated based on resource, expertise and political inclination, creating a postcode lottery for consumers. The regions with the highest concentration of fuel poverty have, for example, received on average half the funding of the most affluent areas under existing schemes.3
