With the Future Homes Standard set to go live across England next March, housebuilders will need to design in PV panels and install heat pumps to the vast majority of new buildings. That’s going to have a positive impact on Energy Performance Certificates... for now.

We’re told the Future Homes Standard will require most new homes to use heat pumps. That’s most, not all. So does that mean there’s scope to sneak through the occasional gas boiler under the new Part L? No. For two reasons...

One part of the Future Homes Standard has grabbed the media’s attention more than most: Mandatory solar panels on all new homes. But how will these new regs work in practice?

Now the Future Homes Standard and Part L (2026) have been published, we can begin unpicking what compliance looks like for new building sites across England. Changes to the fabric performance targets are under the spotlight this morning, or lack of changes may be more appropriate.

When will the Future Homes Standard apply? For most developments, we have a full calendar year to get ourselves ready. The new Part L goes live on 24th March 2027. This is defined as the date the developer submits documents (initial notice, building notice, application with full plans) to the relevant building authority. If paperwork is submitted and accepted before 24th March, the site can built to the 2021 (current) regs.

Last week, the UK Government (representing England and Wales), and the Scottish Government both released statements saying EPCs will remain unchanged until late 2027. To recap, the way Energy Performance Certificates look, how results are graded, and the way they are calculated, are all changing. When it happens, it will be the biggest refresh to EPCs since their creation in 2008.

A fresh set of Home Energy Model User Guides have been published - this will be particularly useful for manufacturers of domestic heating, cooling, hot water, ventilation and renewable systems.

The Senedd has published its response to last year's Approved Document Part L consultation, confirming new energy standards for building sites from 2027. Strictly speaking, FHS doesn't apply in Wales, but this news broadly follows what we're expecting from the UK Government in the coming weeks.

When a SAP calculation spits out unexpected results, the assessor can look through the worksheets and, 99% of the time, they can find the reason and fix it. The Home Energy Model doesn’t produce simple worksheets that assessors can scrutinise, and it doesn’t have a single methodology you can thumb through. So how will we troubleshoot in HEM?

The Government's standard response about the release of the Future Homes Standard has changed recently from 'Autumn 2025' to 'in the coming months'.

This is only going to be exciting for us high-level Home Energy Model nerds, but new Home Energy Model Technical Documents have just been published on the DESNZ website. These docs explain the logic behind HEM.. a bit like the SAP methodology manual.

When the FHS consultation was released in December 2023, there were two other consultations hidden in its shadow. This week's publication is the official response to one of those lesser-spotted policy proposals. In a nutshell, it confirms SAP is definitely going to be retired. HEM will take over as the method for complying with Approved Document Part L. It will also be used for calculating Energy Performance Certificates.

A few weeks ago, I was at the Daikin Collaboration Event in Birmingham, guest speaking alongside Charlotte Lee from the UK Heat Pump Association and David Adams from the Future Homes Hub.

Ed Miliband has confirmed that PV will be 'almost universal with rare exceptions' on all new homes. The details will be defined when the new Approved Document Part L is published later this year, and applied to new sites from late 2026.

The London Plan is being updated next year. In our world, this will likely mean stricter targets on embodied lifecycle and net zero targets, but will the Future Homes Standard influence the final text?

When Part L changes next year, there will be two routes to compliance - using SAP10.3, or the new Home Energy Model. This allows HEM a chance to bed in, and means industry can continue using the familiar SAP tools for a while longer.

It's being reported that solar panels will be mandated on all new homes as part of the UK Government's Future Homes Standard policy; due for publication later this year.