Home Energy Grants NI 2026: Insulation, Windows, Boilers & Solar

Home Energy Grants in Northern Ireland: The Honest 2026 Picture

If you have been searching for insulation grants, window grants or a boiler replacement scheme in Northern Ireland, you have probably found the picture confusing. Most of the guidance online is written for England, where schemes like ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme exist. Northern Ireland works differently, and that difference matters before you start applying for anything.

Here is the plain version. NI does not have a long list of separate grants for each measure. There is no standalone insulation grant open to every household, no dedicated window grant, and no open boiler-replacement scheme. Instead, almost all home energy help in Northern Ireland is delivered through three routes: the Warm Homes Plan, NISEP, and 0% VAT on energy-saving materials. Once you understand those three, you understand what is actually available.

This guide covers each one, who qualifies, what it covers, and what to do if you do not qualify for grant funding.

The three routes to home energy help in NI

Route	Who it is for	What it covers	What you pay
Warm Homes Plan	Low-income homeowners and private tenants on means-tested benefits	Insulation, heating upgrades, solar panels	Up to 100% covered
NISEP	Priority (low-income, over-60, disabled) and some non-priority households	Insulation and other efficiency measures	Part or all, varies by year
0% VAT	Every household, no qualifying needed	Removes VAT from insulation, solar, heat pumps, batteries	You pay, minus the 20% VAT

If you are on means-tested benefits, start with the Warm Homes Plan. If you are not, the realistic position is that you pay for upgrades yourself, with 0% VAT taking the edge off the cost. That is the honest answer, and it saves you chasing grants that do not exist here.

The Warm Homes Plan (the main scheme)

The Warm Homes Plan is Northern Ireland’s flagship home energy scheme, funded by the Department for Communities and delivered through the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. It is the single most important scheme to understand, because it is the route through which insulation, heating and solar help is actually delivered to most eligible households.

For households that qualify, it can cover up to 100% of the cost of the measures recommended after a home assessment. Those measures can include loft and cavity wall insulation, heating system improvements, draught-proofing and solar panels.

To be eligible you typically need to be a homeowner or private tenant in Northern Ireland, in receipt of certain means-tested benefits (such as Universal Credit, Pension Credit or Income Support), living in a property with an EPC rating below Band C that has not already been improved under the scheme. The application starts with a call to the Housing Executive on 03448 920 900, followed by a surveyor’s visit.

Because demand is high and funding is allocated on a rolling basis, the practical advice is to apply early in the year rather than waiting.

Affordable Warmth Scheme NI: what happened to it

A lot of people still search for the Affordable Warmth Scheme in Northern Ireland, so it is worth being clear about its status. The Affordable Warmth Scheme, along with the older Warm Home Scheme, was consolidated into the single Warm Homes Plan. The name lives on in searches and conversations, but the route to that help is now the Warm Homes Plan.

If you remember Affordable Warmth as the council-referred scheme that helped lower-income households with insulation and heating, the Warm Homes Plan is its successor and covers the same ground through one application. So if you have been told to apply for Affordable Warmth, contact the Housing Executive about the Warm Homes Plan instead. You are looking for the same thing under a newer name.

NISEP (supplier-funded help)

NISEP, the Northern Ireland Sustainable Energy Programme, is funded by a levy on electricity bills and delivered through the energy suppliers rather than government directly. It sits alongside the Warm Homes Plan and can fund insulation and other efficiency measures.

NISEP splits applicants into two groups. The priority group covers households on means-tested benefits, people with a disability, and those aged over 60, who receive the highest level of support. The non-priority group covers everyone else, but funding is more limited and not guaranteed every year. Because the schemes are run by suppliers and change annually, the only reliable way to find out what is on offer is to contact your electricity supplier (SSE Airtricity, Power NI or Budget Energy) and ask what NISEP measures they are funding this year.

Insulation grants in Northern Ireland

Insulation is the area where the gap between NI and England causes the most confusion. In England, the Great British Insulation Scheme and ECO4 offer insulation to a broad range of households. Northern Ireland has no direct equivalent. Loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and similar measures are funded here through the Warm Homes Plan (for means-tested households) or occasionally through a NISEP scheme, not through a standalone insulation grant anyone can apply for.

If you qualify for the Warm Homes Plan, insulation is one of the first measures a surveyor will look at, because it is cheap to install and delivers the biggest reduction in heat loss per pound spent. If you do not qualify, insulation is paid for privately, but it is worth keeping in perspective: loft insulation is one of the lowest-cost upgrades available, often paying for itself within a few years through reduced heating bills, and it benefits from 0% VAT.

The practical order of priority for most NI homes is insulation first, then heating efficiency, then generation (solar). Insulating a draughty home before adding solar panels means you waste less of what you generate.

Window and boiler help

Two measures people frequently search for separately are windows and boilers.

Windows: there is no dedicated window replacement grant in Northern Ireland. The Warm Homes Plan does not treat new windows as a core measure the way it does insulation and heating. If heat loss through windows is your concern, draught-proofing (which can form part of a Warm Homes assessment) and secondary glazing are far cheaper than full replacement and often deliver most of the benefit.

Boilers and heating: replacing an old, inefficient heating system can be covered by the Warm Homes Plan for eligible households. There is no open boiler-replacement scheme for households outside the means-tested criteria. If your home is off the gas grid and runs on oil, which is common across rural NI, the assessment may point towards a heat pump rather than a straight boiler swap, depending on your property. Our heat pump grants guide covers that route in detail.

0% VAT: the one help everyone gets

The one form of support open to every Northern Ireland household, with no means test and no application, is the 0% VAT rate on energy-saving materials. Until at least March 2027, domestic installations of insulation, solar panels, batteries and heat pumps are zero-rated for VAT.

In practice this removes 20% from the cost. On a typical 4kW solar system costing around £7,000, that is roughly £1,170 saved automatically. Your installer applies the zero rate; you do not need to claim anything. It is not a grant in the traditional sense, but it is the most reliable saving available, because it does not depend on your income or your benefits status.

Solar panel grants specifically

If your main interest is solar rather than insulation, the funding picture has its own detail worth reading separately. The short version: the Warm Homes Plan can cover solar panels for eligible households, 0% VAT applies to everyone, and export payments earn you money for surplus electricity once your system is running. For the full breakdown, see our dedicated guide to solar panel grants in NI and how export payments work.

What to do if you do not qualify for a grant

Most working households in Northern Ireland will not meet the means-tested criteria for the Warm Homes Plan, and that is worth saying plainly so you do not waste weeks applying for something out of reach. If that is you, the realistic plan is:

1. Take the 0% VAT saving as a given. It applies to every upgrade and needs no application.
2. Prioritise insulation before generation. It is the cheapest measure and reduces what every other upgrade has to work against.
3. Compare quotes for anything you pay for privately. Whether it is insulation, a heat pump or solar, getting three quotes routinely saves several hundred pounds on the same work.
4. Sign up for export payments once you have solar. It is free to join and earns you something for surplus generation.

Home energy grants in Northern Ireland are narrower than the headlines suggest, but the combination of Warm Homes for those who qualify, 0% VAT for everyone, and sensible sequencing of upgrades still adds up to a meaningful reduction in what you pay to heat and power your home.