Enabling a national shift to clean home energy usage

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is steering the UK’s clean energy transition, aiming for clean power by 2030 and net zero by 2050. Progress is underway yet only 2 million homeowners have shifted from gas or combi boilers to air source heat pumps. By 2030 DESNZ aims to grow annual heat pump installation by more than 5 times the current reported rate.

Heating remains a central opportunity. The UK’s 30 million homes generate around 20% of national emissions, and many were built before modern insulation standards, making upgrades more complex.

Achieving long-term targets calls for a fresh approach—using consumer insight and digital engagement to encourage new habits in how people heat their homes.

Improving home energy efficiency means understanding established behaviours around comfort and heating. Many households are still more familiar with older systems and may not yet fully recognise the long‑term benefits of retrofit measures or low‑carbon alternatives. Moving from a combi boiler to a heat pump often appears like a significant shift requiring both technical and behavioural adaptation.

DESNZ has introduced a range of grant schemes to support the transition. Awareness, upfront costs and supply‑chain capacity remain important challenges to overcome. Addressing these areas will be key to accelerating adoption and staying on track for the UK’s long‑term ambitions.

To support DESNZ’s home energy decarbonisation programme, DESNZ engaged IBM Consulting® to design and deliver SIGMA, the Salesforce Integrated Grant Management Application. This Salesforce‑powered data and AI platform streamlines domestic grant administration, enhances citizen services and strengthens data‑driven decision‑making, helping DESNZ advance its long‑term ambitions more efficiently.

Working closely with Policy and the Integrated Corporate Services – Digital teams, IBM® Consulting assessed the entire grant‑programme lifecycle—from channel strategy and KPI design to scalable CRM solutions. The team considered future‑focused requirements such as data retention of more than 25 years and the growing role of AI in analytics, governance, standardised deployment and value realisation.

IBM Consulting brought together a multidisciplinary team to shape a robust portfolio management approach. This included defining the product vision, roadmap, architecture, benefits and governance, and introducing product‑centric ways of working supported by DevOps for faster, multi‑release delivery. As the SIGMA platform matured, IBM Consulting helped establish the long‑term operating model for the platform and transitioned ownership to ICS, ensuring the organisation had the capability and independence needed to sustain and grow the platform.

A consistent customer‑centric focus underpinned the entire programme, creating a seamless journey for all users. Unified governance and a shared DevOps approach ensured quality, reusability and productivity across development.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Data Cloud and Public Sector Solutions provided the intuitive interfaces, strong functional fit and modular architecture needed for rapid configuration and continuous improvement.

Through close collaboration, Salesforce, IBM, ICS Digital and Policy teams accelerated development and reduced delivery effort by reusing configurable components across the platform.

By combining Salesforce capabilities with IBM Consulting’s accelerators and delivery expertise, the team was able to implement the solution significantly faster—around 70% quicker than comparable enterprise approaches. Salesforce Data Cloud enabled smooth integration with payment systems, strengthening data flow and improving operational efficiency across the programme.

Early delivery milestones included onboarding three key DESNZ vendors, five products and providing workflow‑management training to more than 30 civil servants. Automation has already reduced manual effort substantially, replacing tasks such as spreadsheet management, batch uploads and data reconciliation with streamlined, digital processes. Early indicators show a marked improvement in DESNZ productivity.

The SIGMA platform is now in active use across more than 270 local authorities, supporting consistent, high‑quality grant administration nationwide. IBM Consulting partnered with business users and the digital team to build the skills and capabilities needed for long‑term success, spanning web analytics, data science, product ownership, product management and multi‑vendor delivery.

With the Salesforce platform now embedded and scalable, DESNZ is well positioned to accelerate delivery of its national heat pump and clean energy objectives. Enhanced portfolio management and automation will help the department progress more quickly toward decarbonising the UK’s 30 million homes—turning strategic ambition into measurable outcomes on the journey to net zero.

DESNZ (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero) was formed in February 2023 is responsible for UK energy security, protecting billpayers and reaching net zero. It focuses on leading the government mission to achieve clean power by 2030 and aims to advance home decarbonisation this parliament to cut people’s bills and fuel poverty while decarbonising the buildings sector.