Quick Answer: A wave of headlines this week claimed heat pump owners face "winter warmth rationing" because suppliers will soon be able to turn their heating down remotely. The policy behind the story — the Smart Secure Electricity Systems (SSES) programme — is real, but the framing is misleading. Load control is proposed as opt-in: only households that choose to join a scheme, typically in exchange for a cheaper tariff, would be affected, and the current consultation is about licensing the companies involved, not mandating anything for homeowners. For underfloor heating owners, the fuller story is arguably good news.
Where the headlines came from
On 20 July, The Telegraph reported that "heat pump households face winter warmth rationing", saying electricity suppliers will be able to remotely turn down heat pump central heating by the end of next year. The story was picked up widely, with some outlets escalating the language to government-controlled thermostats and comparisons to totalitarianism.
The underlying policy is the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero's Smart Secure Electricity Systems programme. It covers what officials call energy smart appliances — heat pumps, home batteries and EV charge points — and something called load control: the ability for a licensed company to adjust when those appliances draw power, shifting demand away from evening peaks to keep the grid stable and make better use of cheap off-peak electricity.
DESNZ ran a consultation on a draft load control licensing framework from 10 December 2025 to 18 February 2026, alongside a parallel Ofgem consultation on how licences would be monitored and enforced. As of late July, the government is still analysing responses; no final regulations have been made.
What the proposals actually say
Three points from the consultation documents sit awkwardly with the "rationing" framing.
First, participation is voluntary. The proposal is that only households that agree to join a load control scheme would be included, with discounted tariffs offered in return. That is the same bargain behind existing time-of-use tariffs and the National Grid's demand flexibility events, which hundreds of thousands of households already join happily each winter. Anyone who does not sign up keeps full control of their own heating.
Second, the consultation is about licensing the controllers, not controlling consumers. The draft Electricity Act 1989 (Load Control Licence) Regulations 2026 would require companies that remotely manage appliances to hold a licence, with standard conditions covering fairness, transparency and cybersecurity. In other words, the regime being consulted on exists to constrain what companies can do with connected devices — activity that today happens with far less oversight.
Third, none of this is unique to heat pumps. EV charge points have operated under smart-charging regulations since 2021, and smart tariffs already shift millions of appliances' demand daily. Heat pumps are simply the next large flexible load to be brought inside a proper regulatory framework.
There is fair ground for scrutiny — how consent is obtained, how easily households can leave a scheme, and how override functions work in a cold snap all matter, and the final regulations deserve a close read when they appear. But a proposal to license and regulate voluntary flexibility schemes is a long way from rationing.
Why underfloor heating owners are well placed
If you heat your home with a heat pump feeding wet underfloor heating, the flexibility being described is something your system is unusually good at. A heated screed floor stores a large amount of warmth, so briefly reducing heat input during a peak period barely registers as a temperature change in the room — the floor keeps radiating while the heat pump eases off. Radiator systems, with far less thermal mass, cool much faster.
That makes underfloor heating households ideal candidates for the discounted flexibility tariffs these schemes would offer: you shift load with minimal comfort penalty and are paid for doing so. Many owners already do a manual version of this, using smart thermostats to pre-warm floors on cheap overnight rates. With July's price cap having widened the gap between gas and electricity standing costs — covered in our price cap analysis — anything that trims peak-rate electricity use helps the arithmetic in our guide to underfloor heating running costs.
The story is different for electric underfloor heating, which is not an "energy smart appliance" under these proposals and is unaffected — though owners on time-of-use tariffs benefit from the same off-peak logic.
The bottom line
Nothing has been decided, nothing is mandatory, and the consultation now being reported as "warmth rationing" is chiefly about putting licence conditions on companies that operate voluntary flexibility schemes. If you are considering a heat pump — perhaps prompted by the £9,000 off-gas-grid grant that went live on 21 July — this week's headlines are not a reason to hesitate. Choose an installer from the directory of MCS-approved installers, and treat any flexibility tariff you are later offered as what it is: an optional discount, not an obligation.
We will report on the final load control regulations when DESNZ publishes its consultation response.
Sources: DESNZ — SSES Programme: draft load control licence regulations and conditions · Ofgem — Implementing the load control licensing regime · The Telegraph — Heat pump households face winter warmth rationing (via AOL)