Green Heat Network Fund

What is the grant available for?

Households and businesses across England are set to benefit from greener heating as a £288 million government funding scheme is opened – boosting the roll out of next generation heat network projects as part of cutting emissions.

Schemes that will deliver clean heating to homes, offices, commercial and public buildings will be able to apply for grants to the Green Heat Network Fund over the next 3 years, allowing more towns and cities across England to take up this tried and tested technology.

The fund is expected to reduce carbon emissions equivalent to taking 5.6 million cars off the road for a year.

Heat networks offer carbon emissions savings by supplying heat to buildings from a central source, avoiding the need for households and workplaces to rely on individual, energy-intensive heating solutions - such as gas boilers.

Funding will support the uptake of low-carbon technologies like heat pumps, solar and geothermal energy as a central heating source. Applications for grants can be made from 14 March.

The GHNF main scheme opens its first application round on 14 March 2022.

This will be followed by quarterly rounds until the scheme closes in 2025.

Any eligibility criteria

The GHNF is open to organisations in the public, private, and third sectors in England.

Individuals, households and sole traders cannot apply.

Any required delivery targets / outcome required

Our vision for the GHNF scheme is to incentivise heat network market transition to low carbon heat sources via targeted financial support, that will help stimulate the increased deployment of low carbon technologies at scale.

The GHNF objectives are to:

• Achieve carbon savings and decreases in carbon intensity of heat supplied.
• Increase the total amount of low carbon heat utilisation in heat networks (both retrofitted and new heat networks).
• Contribute towards market transformations across the investment landscape and supply chain that will better prepare the heat network sector for further decarbonisation.

Through the provision of targeted commercialisation and construction funding, the GHNF will help tackle some of the most prominent barriers to decarbonisation of heat networks. Increased deployment will help bring down the up-front capital costs of low carbon technology due to greater standardisation and supply chain efficiencies. The utilisation of low carbon technology will help bring down operating costs in the long term as well as upscaling the skills and knowledge required to operate them to the benefit of both the customer and network operators.

Who provides the grant?

Department for Energy Security and Net Zero 

How to apply for the grant?

To find out more information please click here.

Email ghnfcorrespondence@beis.gov.uk for an application form. We will usually reply within 3 working days.

BEIS will manage the first application round. Subsequent rounds will be managed by our delivery partner, at which point scheme rules and criteria will remain the same but some of the processes may change.

Register for news updates

If you want to be added to the GHNF mailing list and receive scheme announcements and news updates, please email ghnfcorrespondence@beis.gov.uk.