Phase 4 Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme - Frequently asked questions

Yes. We encourage clients who have previously used Salix funding delivered from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme or the Low Carbon Skills Fund to continue applying. We request that any relevant information on this is disclosed to Salix relationship managers, so we can understand how this can affect the delivery of the proposed projects.

GPs are not eligible unless they are contracting authorities of an eligible body (including NHS trusts) that either own or have a long-term lease agreement with responsibility for maintenance of the buildings. This excludes NHS property services as these are semi-private.  

Yes, parish and town councils meet the eligibility criteria provided they own the site.   

Phase 4 sees changes in our eligibility criteria. For Phase 4 applicants must be a “public authority” as defined by the Procurement Act 2023. Many Higher Education Institutes are independently governed and so will need to evidence that they are “wholly or mainly funded by public funds”. 

Higher Education institutions will be asked to provide clear evidence they meet these criteria by providing of either of the following:

• An assessment against the procurement act
• A procurement statement
• A financial statement
• A signed letter from a chief financial or procurement officer

We request the document, from the above list, makes it clear how the applicant is eligible and meets the above “public authority” definition as defined by the Procurement Act 2023, to prevent further queries.

Public sector applicants must either own the building that the funding is being used to upgrade the heating systems or have a long-term lease arrangement where the tenancy agreement places the responsibility for operation and maintenance of the building services on the public sector body. Please note that it is not required that the public sector applicant pay the energy bills. 

Buildings with Private Finance Initiative (PFI) arrangements are eligible to apply. Applicants must provide detail of the lease agreement including the remaining lease length and plans following the contract end date in the application form. 

See section 4.1.3 in the Phase 4 Guidance Notes for further detail and evidence required for applications with leaseholds and Private Finance Initiative arrangements.  

Domestic tuition fees count as ‘public funds.’  However, please be aware tuition fees from overseas students, endowments and private grants do not.

In all cases we advise you to review your eligibility with your internal procurement office and financial teams.

No, applicants cannot resubmit their application once it has been submitted via the application portal. Applicants must only submit one application per project. Any duplicate applications will not pass the initial quality checks and will be withdrawn from the scheme.

No, applicants are encouraged to read the guidance for Phase 4 as the criteria has changed. Applicants must submit a completed Phase 4 application form along with the mandatory supporting information. Phase 4 requires applicants to submit new supporting documents not previously required by applicants in 3c. 

Phase 4 Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme is not operating a first come first served system. Applications will be prioritised for testing using the targeted allocation process. This will occur once the portal has closed so the time of application does not matter. 

No, all applications must be submitted through the portal. All accompanying mandatory and optional evidence must equally be submitted through the Salix Application Portal which will be linked on our website once it is open. In the meantime, please register for a Salix account in preparation for the portal opening should you wish to submit an application.

If applicants are experiencing issues with this. Please email us as soon as possible.

If you do not have the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) for your buildings readily available, please use the following link: UPRN search, address & postcode finder – FindMyAddress.

You can find your building’s MPRN on your gas or dual fuel bill. This is usually marked ‘Meter Point Reference Number’ and is between six and 10 digits long. An example of an MPRN is: 1875258102.

Alternatively, the Meter Point Administration Service’s online tool Find My Supplier can be used to find your building’s MPRN. 

No, applications must be submitted by the public organisation itself.

We expect the submitted information to be right first time and significant amendments will not be accepted.

However, if there are unavoidable changes to the grant carbon cost throughout assessment due to acceptable adjustments, as listed in the scheme guidance, it may impact the application’s position under targeted allocation. Applicants should therefore ensure that all information that may impact the grant carbon cost of the application is accurate and realistic.  

Applicants can refer to Step 4.2 of the application form for a visualisation of the project’s Carbon Cost Curve. Here, a grant value can be selected. The lower the carbon cost, the better value for money the project will be, and the higher in the ranking it will be placed. Therefore, by selecting a lower grant value on the project’s cost curve, this will increase the competitiveness of the application.

The ranking is also influenced by the sector in which it resides. The applicant must ensure that the proposed applicant contribution balances competitiveness and affordability.

No, as a non-departmental public body, it is Salix’s responsibility to remain supplier neutral and cannot publish a list or recommended consultants.

We encourage all types of applicants to submit for Phase 4 of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme,  as the complexity of the projects can vary according across the public sector. Within targeted allocation applications funding will be distributed evenly across the three sector soft caps, see section 2.1.3 of the Phase 4 Guidance Notes. If the organisation requires more support to create a well-built project, please refer to our Low Carbon Skills Funding for specific funding support on skills.

There is no limit to the size of grant value that a public sector organisation can apply for, though the maximum application carbon cost for Phase 4 is £510/tCO2e over the lifetime of the project for grant funded measures.

Applicants are encouraged to apply for funding which reflects the size of a project and reflecting on the targeted allocation process being used for Phase 4. Applicants must also ensure they can meet the needs of funding the minimum recipient contribution of 12%. Please refer to guidance for further details.

After applications are sorted into carbon cost tiers, they are randomised within each tier. This means that applications will be awarded funding in a random order within the three carbon cost tiers.  The randomisation process for Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme will be making use of a function built-in to the technology platforms we use. 

The function has been used before and extensively tested to provide a true randomisation. The process does not change any of our core data, it simply provides a new list with a randomised order to the applications.

If you are only proposing one measure the carbon cost curve will present as a flat line in step 4.2 of the application form. If the grant carbon cost exceeds the £510/tCO2e LT threshold, you will not be eligible for any grant funding since the carbon cost will remain the same regardless of the grant value you wish to claim. This is one of the policy changes implemented for Phase 4 Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme to ensure the scheme delivers the highest direct carbon emissions savings possible across the public sector.

If you are only proposing one measure and the carbon cost exceeds £510/tCO2e LT, you are encouraged to consider introducing other carbon cost effective measures, such as building fabric improvements, or buildings to achieve a compliant project and access some grant funding.

The fossil fuel heating plant being replaced must be at the end of its useful life. For the purposes of meeting the phase 4 Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme criteria, this is a heating plant aged 10 years or older, from the date of commission to the point of removal. Please refer to Section 4.2.1 on the guidance for evidence requirements.

The Energy Act 2023 contains powers to implement heat network zoning. Heat network zoning will designate areas where heat networks are expected to provide the lowest cost, low carbon heating.

Heat Network zoning legislation will, in the coming year, identify locations where heat networks are highly likely to be the lowest cost low carbon heating solution. To align with this, Phase 4 scheme guidance and criteria places additional emphasis on the importance of considering heat networks within the range of low carbon heating technology options for your building. However, there will be no requirement under Phase 4 of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme to connect to a heat network. For full details on heat networks, please refer to section 3.1 of the guidance notes. 

The full costs of the low carbon heating and all carbon savings should be included in the application form, even if a proportion of the low carbon system that replaces the load of the non-end-of-life boilers cannot be claimed against. Since Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme could only fund the eligible proportion of the solution you should calculate the grant funding you would be eligible for based on a kW or kWh basis and present your calculations. 

We can work with you during technical assessment to agree the approach. The ineligible costs should be deducted from the grant value requested on step 4.2 of the application form (above the 12% recipient contribution).

You must remove the primary, end-of-life, fossil fuel heating plant to be eligible for Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. If there is a dedicated gas boiler which feeds a calorifier for DHW, the expectation is that the boiler will be end-of-life and removed as part of your project. Where the calorifier operates as a heat interface in buildings proposing to disconnect from a heat network, the calorifier can be defined as the heating plant for the purposes of Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme and replaced with a low carbon alternative. The calorifier must be evidenced as end-of-life.

Whilst there are some examples of applicants being able to retain fossil fuel equipment for backup, there are caveats to this and applications will be assessed on a case by case basis. For example, if you do not currently have backup at your site, the proposal to retain boilers for backup would likely be challenged.  

Please refer to sections 4.2.7 and 4.2.8 of the guidance notes.

The carbon cost calculator contained in the application form will automatically determine what measures are funded by the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme grant, and what is therefore funded by the applicant’s own contribution to the project. The carbon cost calculation for Phase 4 (£/tCO2e LT) is as follows:

The application form will automatically rank measures based on their carbon cost and generate a carbon cost curve, specific to the measures inputted.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has allocated capital funding available from 2025/26 to 2027/28 for Phase 4 of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. The value of available funding and the profile split across the three financial years will be confirmed in due course.

Applicants can include fabric improvements and energy efficiency measures where they reduce the heat or electrical demand of the building being heated by the proposed low carbon heating plant (i.e., insulation, double glazing, LEDs and solar panels). Energy efficiency measures (i.e., insulation, double glazing, LEDs, solar panels and swimming pool covers) are only eligible for Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme funding if they are installed in a building that is also installing a Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme-funded low carbon heating source as part of the same project.

A list of projects awarded funding through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, and short summaries of these projects, can be found on the scheme’s gov.uk page which will be published in due course.

To receive email updates of any news please subscribe to updates through our website here.

We encourage organisations to actively engage with the media and showcase their projects and the funding awarded under the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. Please send draft releases to us in advance of any promotional activities at [email protected] and we will get back to you promptly.

Draft releases must be shared in advance and any media embargo must be respected.

The Salix Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme grant will not count towards the CDEL however any internally funded elements (paid by the Trust) will.

NHS England has asked recipients to reach out to [email protected] if further confirmation is required. 

The payment requirements for Phase 4 are still being reviewed, however these are likely to follow previous grant phase requirements. We will issue guidance to successful grant recipients after grant offer letters have been signed. 

No, where projects take up to three financial years to complete, applicants can only apply for sequential annual grant funding. Applications with only financial year 2025/26 and 2027/28 funding will not be approved.

No, spend to be claimed against the grant must be evidenced to be within the respective year it is spent, so costs incurred in February 2025 would not be able to be claimed from a FY 2025/26 grant allocation. These costs could be instead covered by the agreed recipient contribution.