News and Press Releases

Heat Trust, the consumer protection scheme for people living on communal and district heat networks, has reported significant growth over the past few years as the industry prepares for statutory regulation.

Its latest report, covering the two-year period October 2021 to September 2023, highlights how the scheme has protected consumers during the energy crisis and helped the sector get ready for regulation.

Membership of the Heat Trust scheme has grown as heat networks expand and more operators register in order to be 'regulation ready'. The scheme now protects over 80,000 consumers – up from 15,000 at its launch in 2015.

Heat Trust says that statutory regulation remains the only way to extend protections to all heat network consumers. It therefore urges the new Labour government to press on with the development of regulations.  

Stephen Knight, Director of Heat Trust, said:

“Heat Trust has led, and continues to lead, the development of customer service standards across the heat networks sector. Never has this been more important than during the energy crisis of the past three years. Our purpose has always been to champion the interests of the consumer and to fill the gap created by the lack of statutory regulation for heat networks.

“Whilst our scheme is protecting a growing number of consumers, only statutory regulation can provide necessary protection for all and tackle more structural issues of consumer detriment in the sector. These include poor technical performance and exposure to unregulated commercial energy markets.

“We will continue to work closely with government and the industry to ensure that forthcoming regulations are fit for purpose and provide good outcomes for consumers, whilst the heat network sector expands over coming decades.”

In its annual report covering the years 2022 and 2023, Heat Trust reports that:

• An increasing number of consumers are protected by the scheme (up 14,000 over the two years), with a diverse range of heat suppliers joining that includes local authorities, housing associations, private developers and energy service companies.
• Supply outages remain an issue, with consumers experiencing an average of four unplanned supply outages per year lasting an average of 5-6 hours each. Individual heat network performance ranged from 0 to almost 20 unplanned outages per year.
• More vulnerable consumers are being identified and protected, with 9% of consumers on a Priority Services Register in 2023 compared to only 4% in 2021.
• Consumer complaints increased to 4.4% in 2023 compared to 3.2% in 2022, but down from 7.4% in 2021. 81% of complaints investigated by the Energy Ombudsman in 2023 were upheld in consumers’ favour.
• Debt remains an issue, but the proportion of consumers who were in debt by more than two months stayed below 20% - and over half of these consumers were on a repayment plan. Heat Trust published best practice guidance during the period on supporting customers in financial difficulty.
• Disconnections for debt were experienced by less than 1% of consumers, but the rate of reconnections lagged behind once debt was cleared.

Heat networks are key to the UK’s heat decarbonisation plans, especially for higher-density housing, where individual heat pumps may not be practical or cost-efficient. A third of all new-build homes are now on heat networks and it is estimated that over five million homes could be served by a heat network by 2050 (a ten-fold increase from the estimated 500,000 homes currently on heat networks in the UK).

Government has encouraged heat network providers to register with Heat Trust in advance of the forthcoming statutory consumer protections, to ensure they are ready for regulation. Currently 28 heat suppliers covering 129 separate heat networks are signed up to Heat Trust scheme.

For more information about Heat Trust and how to register with the scheme, please see here.

You can read the full Heat Trust annual report here.