UK boiler manufacturers must ensure at least 6% of their sales are from heat pumps or face financial penalties under a new government scheme launched April 1, 2025. The Clean Heat Market Mechanism (CHMM) places new obligations on affected companies, with civil penalties and potential criminal prosecution for failure to comply.
Originally scheduled to launch on April 1, 2024, CHMM implementation was delayed following lobbying from the boiler industry, with some manufacturers calling the new policy a “boiler tax”. The fines issued for failure to comply have also been reduced, from GBP 3,000 ($3,800) to GBP 500 for each gas boiler sold above the target.
In a statement, Jess Ralston, analyst at the Energy Climate Intelligence Unit said that the CHMM will see manufacturers “compete to sell more electric heat pumps to replace boilers, bringing the price down.” The think tank analyst added that the UK government could have launched the CHMM in 2024, “but the gas boiler manufacturers lobbied hard for a delay.”
“A great deal of fuss was made over sales targets that history now shows the industry would have hit anyway,” she said. “Some manufacturers added a self-imposed ‘boiler tax’, charging consumers an additional [GBP] 110 to the price of a boiler last year which the companies themselves, not the government, received. The question for the industry is have all of the manufacturers guaranteed that all buyers have now had the made-up boiler tax repaid?”
The scheme places obligations on companies manufacturing 20,000 gas boilers or more, or 1,000 oil boilers or more. It applies to businesses that manufacture or outsource the manufacturing of fossil fuel boilers or heat pumps, while also owning the right to use the brand name, trademark or other distinctive mark used to market fossil fuel boilers or heat pumps in the United Kingdom. The companies must ensure heat pumps sales are at least 6% of boiler sales and report installations to MCS, the CHMM's approved certification scheme.
Businesses close to but below the scheme’s minimum volume threshold also have obligations. They must register with the Clean Heat Market Mechanism and have reporting obligations, but they do not have heat pump sales targets. Companies and groups of companies manufacturing between 15,000 and 19,999 gas boilers or between 750 and 999 oil boilers are viewed as “near-threshold suppliers” under CHMM rules.
The CHMM is expected to run for a four-year period with the UK government setting heat pump sales targets for each scheme year, through to March 31, 2029. From Oct. 1, 2025, a credit transfer window will open for scheme participants and credit holders. Manufacturers can earn and trade credits acquired from heat pump sales in order to hit targets.
The CHMM is the latest policy implemented by the UK government in a bid to hit ambitious heat pump installation targets. It also offers a GBP 7,500 grant to consumers installing a heat pump. The government wants to see heat pump installations hit 600,000 per year by 2028, up from the 58,000 installations recorded in 2024 by certification body MCS.
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What a nonsense; dictating to manufacturers on that which is a Customer Choice.
Some may not want, some may not afford*, to buy expensive Heat Pumps; who’s nebulous benefits are suspect.
Fitting such to some dwellings may be impractical, or even impossible.
Yet more Expensive Dictate, from The Red Commissars of Whitehall; chasing ‘The Green Dream’.
* Don’t forget, the expensive ‘HP’, on its own is useless, without a great deal more work and expenditure.
Chasing ‘The Green Dream’ equals: 25 percent benefit; 25% Ideology/Wish Fulfilment; 25% Share Dividends & 25% Scam.
Heat pumps DONT WORK.
By don’t work I mean DONT WORK.
a 15kW output heat pump, in the dead of winter (when you need the heat most) will have a reduced output. In Northern Scotland, where ambient temperatures routinely hit minus 10 C, the output will be roughly half. So whatever output you think you need double it.
Fine for anything built in the last 20 years insulation is great, not so good for old stone built houses (like mine). I have standard size radiators and a 36kW oil boiler.
They don’t make domestic heat pumps bigger than 17.5kW so I’d need two, oh wait FOUR of the largest domestic heat pumps on the market, AND I’d need to change my radiators.
So a heat pump solution would cost me something in the region of £60,000, to replace my £2,000 oil boiler.
Oh and it’d cost me ANOTHER £4,000 to upgrade my mains power supply to a three phase supply.
Complete craziness, heat pump are a dubious means of heating at best to threaten manufacturers with actions when it’s not in their control what method of water/central an individual will choose to buy is beyond their control, it’s pointless piece of legislation IMO.
So big brother is now telling us, the end user, what we must buy and going to fine the manufacturers if we dont. I have been in building services for 50 + years (now retired) and really dispair at the way we are told how good heat pumps are when they increase the domestic electricity useage and require supplementry heating in very cold weather and an additional electric hot water source. We are being fed a load of nonesense by a bunch of overpaid ignoramos that know nothing about what they are forcing upon unsuspecting consumers. When we are totally reliant upon electricity, so the prices will go up and up. It’s a government scam.
The government can shove the heat source pump insulation for my home where the sun doesn’t shine as I will stick to having a gas boiler, besides my home doesn’t qualify for a heat source pump as it’s a park home.
I’m a current heat pump user and it’s the best thing I’ve done with my house. However, the first installation was terrible. Until there are good installers out there, it is not fair to put targets on suppliers if the consumer doesn’t want it.
My badly installed heat pump was a nightmare from start to finish. The well installed replacement is absolutely fantastic
Politicians interfering in markets never work , you would think by now this had been learnt , I appreciate they are getting thicker and thicker but really .