How can I apply for the Warm Home Discount?

Hey @Pepsi !

Good news. The Warm Home Discount has been boosted to £150 this year for both the Core Group and Broader Group. That’s the only significant change other than the fact it can be stacked on top of all these other schemes which were announced this week. More details on those in my guide at 

• Energy bill discounts 2022 - what does this mean for OVO Members?

As for the start date, I’d expect applications will open sometime around September this year. Keep an eye on things as there’ll probably be an announcement when it opens.

Blastoise186 wrote:

Hey @Pepsi !

Good news. The Warm Home Discount has been boosted to £150 this year for both the Core Group and Broader Group. That’s the only significant change other than the fact it can be stacked on top of all these other schemes which were announced this week. More details on those in my guide at 

• Energy bill discounts 2022 - what does this mean for OVO Members?

As for the start date, I’d expect applications will open sometime around September this year. Keep an eye on things as there’ll probably be an announcement when it opens.

Thank you for your reply.  I will go and read your guide 🙂

Updated on 14/08/25 by Abby_OVO

 

The Warm Home Discount is closed for scheme year 2024/25 and will re-open later this year. We’ll keep our topics updated with the newest information and eligibility when we know more, you can also check out the Government webpage for updates soon.

 

• Warm Home Discount (WHD)

What is the Warm Home Discount (WHD)?

The Warm Home Discount is a one-off £150 discount given to eligible domestic electricity customers to help with their energy costs. It's usually paid between October and March of each scheme year. It's a Government scheme funded by participating energy suppliers like us. It’s designed to help people who need it most.

Following a consultation with the UK Government, it has been agreed that there will be an expansion of the one off £150 Warm Home Discount payment.

This means that more of our customers in England & Wales will be eligible for the Warm Home Discount payment. The change only impacts CORE Group 2 customers. This means every customer on means-tested benefits in England & Wales will qualify, removing the high cost to heat threshold in current regulations. 

Customers can register interest online here. 
 

If you need some assistance completing the WHD application when it opens, please contact our support team. 

Eligibility for the Warm Home Discount
 

Following Government changes to the scheme a few years back, eligibility for the Warm Home Discount depends on where you live;

• I live in England or Wales
• I live in Scotland

England

Core Group 1:

• You or your partner were named on the domestic electricity account.
• You were supplied by OVO on the qualifying date. If you were supplied by another supplier participating in the scheme on the qualifying date, that supplier will be told to give you the discount even if we're now supplying you.
• You or your partner got the Guaranteed element of Pension Credit on the qualifying date.

Core Group 2:

• You or your partner must be named on the electric account.

• You or your partner are in receipt of a means-tested benefit.

Scotland

If you live in Scotland, there are two groups:

CORE Group 1 (No change):

• The customer or their partner must be in receipt of the Guarantee Credit Element only, or the Guarantee and Saving element together.

• The customer or their partner must be named on the electric account.

Broader Group:

• You’ll be required to submit an application for the Warm Home Discount if you believe you’re eligible.

• You or your partner must be named on the electric account.

• The address must be on supply for electric at the time of application AND when the Warm Home Discount payment is applied, if eligible. 

• Updated eligibility information for 2025/26 will be shared once approved by Ofgem.

What do I do if I don't get a letter?

Customers must meet the listed criteria on the Qualifying Date of 24 August 2025. 

Please note that registering your interest does not count as completing a Warm Home Discount application. Eligibility criteria for the 2025/26 scheme is still under review and may be subject to change. 

Thank you so much, that is really informative and helpful. How will Ovo find out/know about a person’s benefit/financial situation please? And who will inform us, yourselves, or the DWP?

I can partially answer that one too.

Based on previous experience with the manual method of applying as I’m in the Broader Group, it was a case of me submitting an application to OVO and then OVO would run some checks with the DWP to look up my benefits status. If those checks verified my benefits and circumstances as being active and eligible for WHD, the application got approved within around 90 seconds with an email being sent to me shortly afterwards from OVO to confirm it’s all gone through. Otherwise, if something went wrong it’d go to one of OVO’s teams for manual review.

That’s how it’s worked from the old system anyway. I don’t know exactly how it’ll work this time, but it could potentially be similar to how it works for the Core Group. I’ll keep an eye out for updates. If I learn more, my mega guide will be updated.

yes, it’s always been like that for me too. But now we will be in other people’s hands, my fear is they won’t do it quickly and all the money will be gone before it gets to us. I like to see to my own affairs, this will stress me out.

We’ll be informed of your eligibility based on information held by the DWP, @Pepsi . As mentioned, we’re still in the process of publishing the full details of the new way this will be advised to you so we’ll update this thread as soon as we know more.

I hear you there. It’s high on my list of stuff to research and I will be keeping an eye on it. Tim and Jess most definitely will as well!

I’m hoping that this new automated process should speed things up. It could even just be a trivial matter of an automated script sweeping through the DWP systems to identify every eligible claimant and then spit out a list of them to every energy supplier in the UK, And from there, have each supplier crunch that list to match up any customer records and for every confirmed match, automatically process a Warm Home Discount application.

That’s how I’d do it if it were me.

And of course, Jess Ninja’d me!

OK Jess,  all we can do is wait and see then, thanks for your help.

I wonder how all that will work with GDPR and getting permissions to sweep etc. , we shall see thanks again.

No worries. :)

GDPR allows this sort of data processing as long as it’s done properly and is ONLY used for the purpose of setting up Warm Home Discount claims. It cannot be used for marketing, debt collection, telesales or basically any other purpose beyond what’s on the tin.

Understood, thank you

I'm glad someone asked this question as this affects me too. Thanks for this info, much appreciated.

Will we be told about warm home discount in advance so we know.with it getting done automatically 

Hi @Mavis and welcome to the OVO online community,

Great question to ask about how and when you’ll find out about the Warm Home Discount payments this coming winter. As mentioned in the ‘Best Answer’ above:

 

We’ve just checked in Warm Home Discount team about when they’ll be in touch with successful recipients, so I’ll be back to let you know when we get more details on this.

Thanks for bearing with us.

Please let me know.

Hi, I have read the q & a above and can understand how ovo customers who have previously applied for WHD over previous years and whose details of who is in broader group you already have in your system. 

My query surrounds those who were moved from sse and had to apply 'manually' every year. Your system would not especially have my details or on what basis my applications were hitherto successful. So,it is all fair and well saying those in broader group won't gave to apply, but your above answers does not cover my specific group of customers. Could you please advise further on my specific query.  Many thanks.

Hi @FrancisY ,

I think it’ll probably be based primarily off of sources like the DWP rather than what your energy supplier knows about you. That way, no matter which supplier you’re with you should get WHD as long as your supplier is opted into BOTH Core and Broader Group.

Hi, Having read the new updated information on whd, I know there is more info to come, but what about those who were moved from SSE to Ovo and so at this moment we are '1st year customers' whereas SSE have all previous 15+ years information on bills/usage and fact that we had always been credited with £140 WHD payment. How will this affect how those on low income/in receipt means tested benefits/income related/core 2 group receive or don't receive the £150 this time? 

Many thanks for any answer you can give, or is it all down to DWP?!

The SSE to OVO Migration won’t block you from receiving the Warm Home Discount if you’re eligible for it, OVO will make sure of that.

If the DWP notifies OVO or SSE that you are eligible for WHD, it’ll all be arranged in the background so you won’t need to do anything.

Cheers, Blastoise. Also answered who deals with whd that now being dwp and not sse/ovo. Still like to know exactly how dwp calculate who eligible-those who fit benefit criteria easy enough, it is high usage household criteria and hiw this equates to high usage. On other forum there is saying 'if you can't blind them with science, blind them with bullsh!t' and this it seems us how they are going. The govt discounted easier ways of agreeing who would receive which even agreed not just by charities but also by energy co's, like ovo. I despair.

Hey @FrancisY,

Thank you for your question. 

@Blastoise186 is right if you are the Core Group 1 and get the Guaranteed Element of Pension Credit, you will automatically get the Warm Home Discount (WHD). There is more information about this on the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) website.  

The WHD is expanding so that more people will be eligible for the discount. This should mean that more people are receiving the help they need. There is more information about how this will be worked in this answer: 

Hope this helps.

Just wondering if it has to be the bill payer that receives the benefit to qualify?

Hey @Vixen1500, 

Thank you for that great question!

It is based on the household, not specifically the bill payer. 

Hope this helps. 

Warm Home Discount 2022/2023 i am a disabled man aged 57 i receive PIP and Income related ESA do i qualify for the warm home discount, it says in the overview that people who qualify who are on certain benefits would automatically be added by DWP, but i have never received this before and i have been in receipt of the two benefits mentioned above for years, i am just wondering why that might be or do i have to apply for it online every year. I have never heard of this discount before today as i was going through my OVO account and saw it on there and looked into it, any help or advice would be much appreciated.