Autumn Budget: What’s hot, and what’s not for energy, clean-tech & the built enviro?

Our Energy Team tuned into the Autumn Budget (November 26, 2025) and pulled together the essential takeaways. Our view is that this budget contained very little that is radical or new on energy specific measures.

Energy bill support: Non-domestic

There are no new announcements on non-domestic energy prices, but there was a reiteration of support for energy-intensive industries: 

• In October the government confirmed plans to increase Network Charging Compensation relief from 60% to 90%
• From 2027, the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme will reduce electricity prices by £35–40/MWh for thousands of firms. A consultation launched this week will determine scheme scope and design.

Energy bill support: Domestic

• A package of measures to remove around £150 of costs on average from household energy bills – through government funding 75% of the domestic cost of the legacy Renewables Obligation and ending the Energy Company Obligation. 
• An expansion to the Warm Home Discount: in total six million households will receive £150 off their energy bills this winter.
• An additional £1.5 billion capital investment to tackle fuel poverty through the Warm Homes Plan (in addition to the £13.2 billion of funding already allocated).

Renewables / green energy

Announcements on renewables were minimal, but the government reaffirmed its commitment to making Britain a “green energy superpower”.

Nuclear: The government reinforced its “firm conviction” that nuclear energy is green and a crucial part of making Britain a green energy superpower. There are plans to “cut red tape for nuclear” (to be confirmed), and it has added nuclear to the UK’s Green Financing Framework, enabling green gilts and savings bonds to support clean, secure nuclear energy.

Gov, NESO and Ofgem to overhaul grid connection process:

The government had already pledged to tackle grid connection restraints. This Budget announced specific commitments to:

• Reallocate unused capacity and reserve future capacity for strategically important demand projects
• Tighten queue entry requirements
• Explore self-build for high-voltage grid infrastructure and more flexible connections where possible
• Reduce speculative grid applications. The CSIT will set a plan for data centres to ensure only the most credible projects are taken forward.

This budget contained very little that is radical or new on energy specific measures.

Electric vehicles

The Chancellor offered a mixed bag of announcements for the EV industry, with a new tax announced:

The Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (eVED), a new mileage charge for electric and plug-in hybrid cars, will be in effect from April 2028.

Measures of support announced include:

• An additional £1.3 billion of funding for the Electric Car Grant, extended until 2029-30
• Increasing the VED Expensive Car Supplement from £40,000 to £50,000
• An extra £100 million for EV charging infrastructure, including workplace charging
• £100 million for local authorities and public bodies to train specialist staff to accelerate chargepoint rollout
• A new consultation on permitted development rights for cross-pavement EV charging
• 10-year 100% business rates relief for EV chargepoints and EV-only forecourts
• Extending the 100% first year allowances for zero emission cars and EV chargepoint infrastructure by a further year
• A pledge to review the cost of public EV charging, with the goal of lowering costs

Public sector decarbonisation

In June 2025, the government quietly scrapped the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme – a programme which funded heat decarbonisation projects across public sector estates.

The Budget confirmed that the government will consider private sources of finance – including Public Private Partnerships – to decarbonise the public sector estate (alongside or in place of government capital expenditure). We have little detail as yet.

Retail, Hospitality & Leisure:

A hot topic for the Budget was support for Retail, Hospitality and Leisure (RHL) with trade bodies lobbying the government hard in advance for support.

In response, the government will appoint an envoy to champion the sectors and drive reforms, in partnership with UKHospitality and the British Retail Consortium. Permanently lower business rates multipliers for RHL will apply from April 2026 (5p below the national rates), as well as other measures to reduce cost burdens.

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