Free government grants for air con going largely unclaimed

The Government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme fund is enough to provide up to almost 1 million air-to-air heat pumps, which can provide both cooling during increasingly hot summers and heating in winter, by 2030 according to new analysis. Yet uptake remains low with just 45 air-to-air heat pumps supported under the BUS in May [1], when the scheme started supporting this type of reversible heat pump.

Air-to-air heat pumps, sometimes referred to as reversible air-conditioning units, provide efficient heating and cooling using electricity, which in the UK is increasingly generated by renewables. This means they also offer energy security benefits as they reduce the amount of gas we will need to import from abroad as North Sea output continues its inevitable decline.

Jess Ralston, Head of Energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said: "The recent June heatwave is estimated to have killed more than 800 people and as is often the case with climate change it is hitting the least well-off the most. The need for air con is now an added expense foisted on families by climate change but not everyone is going to be able to afford it.

“It won’t work for absolutely every home, but help is at hand through the government’s boiler upgrade scheme, giving households up to £2,500 towards an air-to-air heat pump that generates warmth in the winter, but also cool air in the summer.

“Recent changes by the government mean these units are now eligible for a free grant, but uptake is still low.

“Because air to air heat pumps are running increasingly on British renewables as more wind and solar gets added to the grid, this net zero technology cuts the amount of gas we need to burn, which boosts the UK’s energy security, but also gets us closer to net zero emissions, which is scientifically the only way to stop climate change and this extreme heat simply getting hotter and hotter.”

Air-to-air heat pumps are not the only way households can stay cool during hotter summers. Passive measures such as external shading, shutters, awnings, planting trees and other greenery, and better-designed buildings including insulation can all help reduce overheating and lower the need for cooling in the first place. But for many existing homes, particularly flats, poorly insulated properties and homes occupied by vulnerable people, passive cooling measures alone may not be enough during periods of extreme heat, making access to affordable cooling increasingly important as the climate warms.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) has a budget of £2.4 billion from April 2026 to March 2030 [2] and supports the replacement of fossil fuel heating with electric heat pumps in British households. If that funding were fully taken up by air-to-air heat pumps at the grant level of £2,500 per installation, it would be enough to support over 950,000 units that would be able to cool homes as well as heat them. The scheme has already successfully seen around 83,000 air-to-water heat pumps installed (which only provide heating) which are an important technology for many homes, and have been seen to date as the most suitable for British homes as the system is more similar to gas [3].

Other European countries have installed air-to-air heat pumps at a vastly greater pace than the UK to date. The Netherlands installed an average of around 24,000 every month in 2025 [4], while France installed around 800,000 in the whole of 2024 [5].

Costs of air-to-air heat pump units start at around £2,000 [6] for the smallest units with the BUS expected to cover a significant part of a whole-house system.

The UK, like much of Europe, has already experienced several heatwaves in 2026, which the World Weather Attribution has confirmed have been made “rapidly worse” by “fossil fuel emissions” [7]. Reaching net zero emissions remains the only way to prevent the impacts of climate change, like heatwaves and flooding, becoming more frequent and severe.