In early September we wrote about Kehelland in Cornwall, where an English 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, and it is worth following. Because the British are no longer trying to prove that HVO works. They are fighting over whether they will be allowed to use it.
From technical proof to political demand
Last winter the UK 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, service technicians and fuel distributors, all pointing to renewable liquid fuel as the way forward.
Since then Britain has a new government – Andy Burnham took office as Prime Minister in July – and the response to the consultation still has not been published. That has led the trade body OFTEC to continue its Future Ready Fuel campaign, which now urges people to write directly to the Prime Minister’s team with two demands: publish the consultation response, and back the rollout of HVO for oil heated households.
The sum that keeps Britain on heating oil
The previous government’s approach was electrification – in practice, heat pumps. The 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 house stays on fossil heating oil. Not because anyone chose it, but because getting started with the alternative costs too much.
What the British are asking 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.
That the British are 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 elsewhere
The comparison gets uncomfortable. Britain has an expensive barrier, but it can see it, and 16,000 households have just signed their names to getting past it.
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.
The pattern repeats across Europe: the technology is in place, and it is regulation and taxation that set the pace. 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.
Britain spent five years proving that it works, and has now started demanding access to it.
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.