If certain circumstances change during the accreditation, you may need to install meters to carry on receiving payments. This is known as metering for payment. Once you are required to install metering for payment, you cannot return to being deemed for payment. The closure of the scheme does not change the requirement for you to install metering if it’s required.

Read our essential guide which explains the circumstances when metering for payment is required.

Metering for payment

What systems need to be metered for payment?

If any of the following circumstances apply, your installation must be metered for payment.

  • A separate installation provides heat to the property. It could use a fossil fuel source (such as a gas boiler) or a renewable source (such as a heat pump). It could provide back-up heating or provide heat separately. See the list of exceptions below:
  • The installation combines a heat pump with a fossil-fuel system. This is where a heat pump and a gas or oil boiler are combined in the same unit (they are sometimes called ‘hybrid systems’)
  • The installation uses biomass and its installed capacity doesn’t provide 100% of the property’s space heating requirement (the space heating requirement is found on the MCS certificate and the installer determines it by performing heat loss calculations)
  • The property has been occupied for less than 183 days in the last 12 months. You may be eligible to request exemption from this after 1 April 2022. For more information see the essential guide.

If a separate installation provides heat to the property, there are some exceptions. Metering for payment would not be required if the separate installation: 

  • is solar thermal 
  • is designed and installed to heat only one room (such as a fireplace or plug-in heater) or is in a partition wall and directly radiates heat to two rooms 
  • only generates heat for domestic hot water (such as an immersion heater) 
  • is a supplementary electric heater controlled by the same control system as the installation 28 
  • is another installation of the same technology type which was commissioned by your installer on the same date (e.g., you have a larger property that needs two heat pumps). We’ll treat these as the same installation 
  • captures heat expelled from your property and transfers it back without generating additional heat

Something you don't understand? Check our key terms.

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