PSDS Funding for Hospital Solar: What Is Open in 2026

What PSDS is, and what happened to Phase 4

The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) is run by Salix Finance for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Phase 4 took applications from 9 October to 25 November 2024 and is closed to new applications. The gov.uk scheme page says grants are still being awarded and lists funding for the financial years 2025/26 to 2027/28; it announces no further round. The Salix report of 8 December 2025 describes Phase 4 as the closing round: 383 applications, of which 245 were approved, covering 207 public sector organisations, and more than £816 million allocated.

PSDS was built mainly around low-carbon heating and building fabric, with on-site renewables such as solar PV eligible alongside them; check the scheme page for the exact Phase 4 wording before quoting it in a business case. For a trust, the practical consequence is that PSDS is no longer a route to plan a new solar scheme around. Projects already awarded continue to deliver.

Great British Energy NHS solar: the 2026/27 window closed on 22 June 2026

The Great British Energy NHS solar programme has funded trusts in rounds run with NHS England. Round 1 (March 2025) funded 78 trusts, an extension (October 2025) funded 34 more, and a further £25 million for 2026/27 took applications until 22 June 2026. The tracker lists every round, the trusts the government has published, the 2026/27 window and the sources, so this page does not repeat them. These routes are for NHS bodies in England; NHS Scotland, NHS Wales and Health and Social Care Northern Ireland have separate arrangements.

Other routes

Trust capital. NHS estates capital funds solar where the business case supports it, most often for smaller schemes or as the trust contribution on a co-funded project. A power purchase agreement removes the capital cost: a funder installs and owns the array and the trust buys its output under a long contract; see the NHS solar PPA guide for how those contracts are structured. Salix loans. We could not confirm that any Salix loan route is currently open to NHS trusts in England, so ask Salix whether one is open to your trust before you put one in a business case.

The Greener NHS programme is not a funding stream, but its regional teams work with trusts on decarbonisation plans, which makes them the right first contact.

What to have ready before the next window

No further PSDS round is announced and the 2026/27 Great British Energy window has closed, so the only sensible preparation is the work every route has asked for: twelve months of half-hourly consumption data, roof drawings and a roof and services survey (see the roof survey guide), a sized and costed feasibility, the trust's Green Plan wording on solar and a named procurement route (see the procurement guide). The funding-windows article sets out what Phase 4 showed about this, and the tracker has the questions to put to your regional Greener NHS team.

Sources and when they were last checked

PSDS facts below were re-read on 31 October 2026; the Great British Energy sources are listed on the tracker.

• gov.uk scheme page: Phase 4 closed to new applications in November 2024; grants still being awarded; funding for 2025/26 to 2027/28; no further round announced (page last updated 4 December 2025).
• Salix report of 8 December 2025: 383 applications, 245 approved, 207 organisations, more than £816 million allocated, Phase 4 described as the closing round.

A note on tax

NHS trusts are generally not corporation tax payers, so the Annual Investment Allowance and first-year allowances that drive private sector solar economics do not apply to the core NHS estate directly; the funding question for a trust is grant, capital or PPA, not tax relief. Private hospital groups are the mirror image: no public grants, but full access to allowances, covered on the private hospitals page.