This article appears as part of the Winds of Change newsletter.

Matthew Henney, director of Eco Energy Ltd, says that he is down £88,000 in customer payments for heat pump installations – and he blames the way the Home Energy Scotland (HES) heat pump grants and loans scheme works by paying out to the customer, not the installer.

At one point, he describes, his company was struggling with £250,000 in outstanding unpaid grants and loans, partly due to delays in processing, but also due to the fact that some customers were not passing on the grant payment.

“We’ve had customers,” Henney says, “that have bought a new car, gone on holiday before paying up. There was one customer that put the money into his business. At the minute we’re not taking on any HES customers because there is no safety net for the business if a customer does not want to pay.”

Heat pump grants in Scotland are applied for by the customer, and, when the work is done, the final installment is paid to them under the expectation that this is passed on to the installer. This differs from the Boiler Upgrade system in England which puts the onus on the installer to apply for the funding and also pays them directly. Many installers would like to see Scotland follow a system more like the one south of the border.

Part of the problem is the frequently drawn-out nature of the process. Though 60% of a heat pump grant and loan can be drawn down in advance, 40% can only be accessed after the work has been done. The process of retrieving this 40%, officially said to take ten days, is often, says Henney, beset by delay, sometimes many weeks, sometimes months or even longer.

Henney describes the laborious nature of the grant and loans process. “If you go through Home Energy Scotland it takes from four weeks to sometimes 8 weeks to get a Home Energy call to assess the property. After they have assessed the property you would then get an action report, and........

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