The National Grid Group Enabling Works Fund is designed to encourage more installations of grant-funded energy efficiency measures through the removal of barriers to installations such as inaccessible loft space or the removal of existing failed insulation.

In this way it supports households who cannot afford essential work not covered by grant funding.

Applications to the fund can be made by installers and from organisations who are helping a client to improve the energy efficiency of their home or who are accessing funding for energy efficiency measures.

Awards from the Enabling Works Fund are usually less than £1,000.

You can apply easily by completing our online form. Please note that the deadline for applications, and for any further information we request, is 31 March 2026.

The fund is administered by the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) on behalf of the National Grid Group (NGG).

What the Enabling Works Fund does

Some affordable-warmth or help-to-heat schemes, for example the Energy Company Obligation and Warm Homes Local Grant, don’t cover the cost of the enabling works that make doing the main work – e.g. the loft or cavity wall insulation itself – possible.

The NGG Enabling Works Fund pays for these preparatory works. The following are examples of the work that can supported through the fund:

• Clearing a loft space or removing loft boarding.
• Loft-hatch work.
• Removing failed insulation or rubble to enable cavity wall insulation.
• Lance installation or scaffolding for necessary access.
• Necessary structural improvements such as repairs to brickwork or floor joists.
• Lifting flooring or moving furniture.
• Low-cost work to enable the installation of heating measures or insulation (preference given to work linked to low-carbon measures rather than fossil fuel heating such as gas boilers).
• Repairs to doors or windows.
• Heating repairs (preference given to work linked to low-carbon measures rather than fossil fuel heating such as gas boilers).
• Measures to improve thermal comfort (internal doors, curtains etc).
• Other low-cost works will also be considered if they meet eligibility criteria.

Which clients are eligble?

The fund covers England and Wales (not Scotland or Northern Ireland), but not the area of southern England covered by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN).

If your client lives in this region (you can check using their postcode and SSEN’s look-up tool) you should apply to the SSEN Enabling Works Fund instead (also managed by CSE).

Clients in all other areas of England and Wales are eligible for the NGG Enabling Works Fund.

In addition:

• Your client must be eligible for the Energy Company Obligation, Warm Homes Local Grant, or another affordable-warmth scheme.
• If an installer is not yet in place, please check there is an appropriate scheme the client is eligible for once the enabling works are completed.
• The works you apply for must be necessary for the installation of energy efficiency measures, or provide a direct energy efficiency or wellbeing benefit for a client, and must not be funded by another scheme. This fund is intended to fund work where no other funding is available.
• You cannot apply for works that have already been completed.
• In general, we don’t approve applications above £1,000.

How do I apply for the scheme?

Please use the form below. Someone from the Centre for Sustainable Energy will be in touch as soon as possible. Form not showing? Open it in a different window here. Questions? Contact installers@cse.org.uk.