In early September we wrote about Kehelland in Cornwall, where a village has heated with HVO for five winters running. The conclusion was that the technology was the easy part: around £500 and an hour’s work per property, no new boiler, 88-90% less CO2 – and not a single technical failure across five heating seasons.

That story has now moved on. Because the industry is no longer trying to prove that HVO works. The fight is over whether households will be allowed to use it.

From technical proof to political demand

Last winter the government put out a consultation on the future of heating in properties off the gas grid – “Alternative Clean Heating”. It closed on 10 February 2026, and around 16,000 responses came in from households, technicians and fuel distributors, all pointing to renewable liquid fuel as the way forward.

Since then there is a new government – Andy Burnham took office as Prime Minister in July – and the consultation response still has not been published. That has led OFTEC to continue its Future Ready Fuel campaign, which now urges people to write directly to the Prime Minister’s team with two asks: publish the consultation response, and support the rollout of HVO for oil heated households.

The sum that keeps homes on heating oil

The previous government’s approach was electrification – in practice, heat pumps. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant for oil and LPG heated homes has been raised to £9,000, and that sounds like a lot of money. But the government’s own consultation material estimates the average cost of switching those very homes to a heat pump at around £16,900.

The remaining shortfall of nearly £8,000 has to be found by the household. That is where it stalls: ordinary families do not have that in the budget, and so the home stays on fossil heating oil. Not because anyone chose it, but because getting started with the alternative costs too much.

What is actually being asked for

What those 16,000 are asking for is not a new installation. It is a different fuel in the tank that is already standing there.

The campaign proposes starting by having 20% of the heating oil replaced by HVO in existing boilers – with no capital outlay at all. According to Future Ready Fuel, that alone would deliver the same carbon saving as installing 347,372 heat pumps across the UK’s 1.7 million oil heated homes.

Starting at 20% is a political compromise, not a technical limit. In Kehelland the properties ran on pure HVO through all five winters, and pure HVO100 is what we supply and advise on.

The same pattern across the North Sea

Britain has an expensive barrier, but it can see it, and 16,000 households have just signed their names to getting past it. Elsewhere the barrier is better hidden.

In Denmark the installation side is cheap – in our previous article we put it at around DKK 4,500 to make an ordinary oil boiler HVO ready. In practice it amounts to little more than an extended service visit. The barrier sits somewhere else entirely: in the duty. HVO for heating is taxed there at about DKK 2,460 per 1,000 litres against DKK 1,241 for heating oil. The fuel that emits 88-90% less therefore costs roughly twice as much in duty.

Different mechanism, same dead end. For old buildings, poorly insulated buildings, listed buildings and rented housing, HVO is the bridge that can be used now – no grant, no new electrical installation, no groundworks.

Five years went into proving that it works. The argument has moved on to access.

Is your installation ready?

If you are considering HVO for your own installation or your customers’, the practical work is manageable: a review of nozzle, pump, hoses and filter. We hold the parts on the shelf in Herfølge – including Danfoss nozzles, where Danfoss offers a range tested and calibrated specifically for HVO, and Oilon burners that can be supplied prepared.

If you have not read the earlier articles, they are here: Five years with HVO in an English village and If HVO can heat a polar station at -32 °C.

Call +45 56 21 50 50 or write to info@arnenielsen.dk – we are ready to advise on what your particular installation needs.