Heat Trust, the consumer protection scheme for people living on communal and district heat networks, has reported continued growth as it publishes findings from its ninth and tenth years of operation.

Its latest report, covering the two-year period October 2023 to September 2025, highlights how the scheme has grown to protect 94,000 consumers in 2025 and close to 100,000 today. It also reflects on all that Heat Trust has achieved in the ten years that the consumer protection scheme has been in operation.

The report includes insights from scheme monitoring data, which shows that reliability remains a key issue for many networks and that there is a growing proportion of consumers in debt to their heat supplier - over 25% by the end of the reporting period.

Membership of the Heat Trust scheme grew during this period as more operators registered in order to be ready for heat networks regulation, ahead Ofgem taking on this statutory role in January 2026. Heat suppliers and operators were encouraged by both Ofgem and DESNZ to “follow existing good practice, such as that set out by the Heat Trust”.

Heat Trust says that as the leading source of customer care expertise within the industry, registration with Heat Trust continues to be the best way for heat suppliers to demonstrate regulatory compliance and best practice.

Stephen Knight, Chief Executive of Heat Trust, said:

“Heat Trust has led the development of customer service standards across the heat networks sector for more than a decade. Our purpose has always been to champion the interests of the consumer and to fill the gap created by the lack of statutory consumer protections for heat networks.

“Our unique monitoring data shows that heat network customers continue to experience far too many supply outages and after years of high gas prices causing heat prices to spiral upwards, a bigger proportion of heat customers are in debt than ever before.

“As Ofgem begins its role as the statutory regulator of the sector, Heat Trust will continue to play a vital role in maintaining consumer protections whilst full statutory protections are phased-in over the coming year or so.”

Anna Eagar, Heat Trust Board member and Non-Executive Director of Aberdeen Heat and Power, said:

“Heat Trust has been truly transformative in changing not just how in control consumers feel about the industry, but also the way the government and industry think about customer protection.”

In its annual report covering the years 2024 and 2025, Heat Trust reports that:

• An increasing number of consumers are protected by the scheme, with 28 new heat networks registered across 12 heat suppliers during the reporting period, five of which were registering heat networks for the first time. 93,637 consumers were protected in total at the end of September 2025, 18,400 more than in October 2023.
• Sector coverage has continued to become more geographically diverse, with 34 Heat Trust registered sites now located in regions other than London.
• Customers continue to experience far too frequent supply interruptions, and average performance across the Scheme appears to be getting worse over time. Site by site analysis shows a huge range in reliability from the best to worst sites, which underlines the importance of including both Guaranteed Standards of Performance (GSOPs) and a robust technical assurance scheme as part of the incoming regulatory framework – both of which are still work in progress.
• The proportion of customers in debt (by more than two months) rose to its highest level ever recorded, at over 25% of the customer base by September 2025.
• Winter 2023-24 saw the highest rate of winter supply disconnections (mainly used for debt) since the pre-COVID-19 era. Overall, the rate of suspensions rose over the period of this report to a high point of six in every 1,000 customers.
• More vulnerable consumers are being identified and protected, the proportion of customers on Priority Service Registers rising to a new high of 11.7% by September 2025, compared to only 4% in 2021.

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).

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.

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