Comment by Kat Young, Heat Policy Practice Manager at Energy Systems Catapult

Picture the street you live on. Within the next four years, the government aims to upgrade, on average, every sixth home you see – making them warmer, healthier and more affordable.

It’s all part of the Warm Homes Plan and the scale of ambition is unprecedented. Upgrading five million homes by 2030 is a huge opportunity for innovation, and the new Warm Homes Agency (WHA) will be at the heart of delivering it.

We’ve started a project looking at how the Warm Homes Agency can make the upgrade journey better for both households and innovators. Fundamentally this is a systems challenge.

But there’s a risk that this new public body – currently being developed by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero – ends up as just another new organisation in an already highly fragmented landscape. It risks adding another layer of bureaucracy and potentially duplicating what already exists, rather than designing a better, connected system.

Here are questions we’ll be answering over the next few months, to help the WHA avoid these pitfalls and maximise the benefits – exploring which capabilities, data infrastructure and partnerships would help it become an effective innovation enabler.

How could the WHA reduce the cost, complexity and risk faced by innovators bringing new solutions to market?

At the Catapult, we work with so many exciting innovators in the warm homes sector, developing new technologies, services and business models. But many struggle to move beyond pilot stages. Innovators often face high customer acquisition costs, fragmented local delivery arrangements, complex procurement processes and limited opportunities to demonstrate impact at scale.

We’ll look at whether the WHA could help address these barriers by providing access to common platforms, data, evaluation frameworks and routes to market, and what an innovation-friendly ecosystem might look like to smooth the path from pilot to large-scale deployment.

How can the WHA increase confidence in low-carbon technology performance?

Low-carbon technologies will only deliver better outcomes if they perform well in real homes, for real households. We’ll ask what evidence is needed to build confidence among consumers, installers, lenders, policymakers and delivery bodies. And what kind of communication will make that evidence land. The goal is proof that technologies and services are delivering the comfort, affordability and carbon outcomes they promise, not just tracking the number of installs.

Getting that proof requires better feedback loops. That could mean the WHA enabling better performance monitoring across schemes, while avoiding unnecessary burdens on households or delivery partners. This could include shared approaches to measuring outcomes, better ways to share lessons across schemes, and using data to spot where interventions aren’t working so that policy, delivery models and consumer support can improve over time.

What’s the right balance between national and local delivery?

The Warm Homes Plan gives the WHA a “critical role in place-based delivery”, supporting local partnerships to plan and lead delivery in their areas. The Catapult will dig into what this means in practice: what should be coordinated nationally, what should be shaped locally, and how the WHA can avoid adding another layer of admin to a delivery system that’s already crowded.

There’s no shortage of models to learn from. We’ll explore existing and emerging local delivery models, including one-stop shops, community retrofit schemes, heat-as-a-service propositions, Warm Home Prescription delivery routes, and area-based partnerships with energy companies.

We know that some community retrofit programmes have been very effective because they’re delivered by trusted local organisations, rather than a “faceless” national agency. The WHA will need to be careful not to lose those trusted, community-led components, while still adding value and accelerating home upgrades.

Those are our key questions for the WHA. What are yours – and what’s needed for the WHA to deliver this once-in-a-generation change?

If you’re designing local delivery models, developing new warm homes solutions, supporting vulnerable households, or grappling with the practical barriers to scaling home upgrades, we think your voice should be heard.

Get in touch to share your evidence, challenge our thinking, or discuss ways we can work together to help the WHA deliver better outcomes for households and innovators.