Redeveloped MCS Installer Scheme: what are the key changes and benefits?

Daniel Yeates, Energy Efficiency Schemes Manager at NICEIC, outlines the key changes and what they mean for NICEIC-certified MCS installers.

The Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) is a nationally recognised quality assurance scheme for small-scale renewable energy installations, including solar panels, solar heating, heat pumps and battery storage.

MCS has recently redeveloped the scheme to help support the rapid growth in demand for competent installers in these technologies. The updated scheme focuses more on installation quality and protecting the consumer, and less on administrative requirements.

NICEIC offers MCS certification for four key technologies: solar heating, solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, heat pumps (air and ground source) and electrical energy storage systems (EESS).

We’re now accredited by UKAS to offer the redeveloped scheme and will be supporting our installers to transition over to the redeveloped scheme in the coming months.

If you’re a new applicant or an existing NICEIC MCS installer, we’ll be in touch with further details. In the meantime, here is some background to the changes and what they mean for you.

Why was the scheme redeveloped?

If consumers are to continue to invest in renewable technologies for their homes and small businesses, they need to trust both the products and the contractors installing them.

Research commissioned by MCS in 2022 revealed the need for better consumer protection in the sector. Based on these findings, MCS consulted on proposals to redevelop its installer scheme in 2023 and published the new scheme documents in early 2025, with a renewed emphasis on delivering quality installations and consumer protection.

While boosting consumer confidence is at the heart of the redeveloped scheme, installer feedback also raised questions about some of the scheme’s administrative requirements. So, the redeveloped scheme makes certification more streamlined for installers, while ensuring the process remains robust and rigorous.

MCS believes its redeveloped scheme will support the ongoing growth of the renewables sector and help meet the UK’s ambitious climate-related goals, specifically the push for 600,000 heat pump installations annually and the delivery of the Future Homes Standards for solar PV, EESS, and heat pumps.

How does the redeveloped scheme benefit installers?

The changes are designed to benefit the installer as well as the consumer. By putting consumer protection at its core, the redevelopment makes it easier for you to differentiate yourself in the market, adds value to your services, and reinforces trust and confidence in your business.

Alongside this, clearer standards mean there’s a greater focus on delivered quality, and less on administration. This should make the scheme fairer and more accessible, as well as allowing you to concentrate more of your time on the quality of your installations and less on completing paperwork.

The redeveloped scheme gives you a new relationship with MCS. As your certification body, NICEIC still delivers the scheme, but you’ll now have a closer partnership with MCS. This is underpinned by an Installer Agreement held directly with MCS, and a dedicated MCS account manager for support and guidance.

What are the key changes?

Clearer standards and new core scheme documents

The redeveloped scheme retains the existing technical requirements (the technical truths) for how systems should be designed and installed. But MCS has taken the contractual elements out of the existing MCS Installation Standards (MIS) and put these into a separate set of documents, the Pre-sale Information and System Performance Estimate Standards, which outline how to carry out system performance estimates. These contain the pre-sale information you must provide to a customer.

The technical elements and expectations haven’t changed, but the standards documents are clearer, simpler, and easier to use.

Alongside the MCS Installation Standards (the technical truths), there are some new core documents.

• Installer Operating Requirements – this is the framework for how you’ll gain and maintain MCS certification. It outlines the requirements and processes you need to follow.
• Customer Commitment – this contains the installer’s responsibility to protect consumers and adhere to consumer protection laws, ensuring customers are treated fairly. You must give this to your customer at the first point of contact, and before entering into a contract.
• Conformity Assessment Guidelines – guidance for certification bodies, including NICEIC, on how we should carry out assessments against the redeveloped scheme. It includes details of the new risk-based surveillance model (Quality Risk Model).

Enhanced consumer protections

Enhanced consumer protection is at the heart of the new scheme. The key changes supporting this are:

• Consumer Code membership is no longer mandatory – you can choose to keep this if you wish (and you may have to keep it if you’re claiming certain government funding, such as vouchers under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme), but MCS has created new obligations under the Customer Commitment and will now manage consumer complaints centrally.
• MCS-approved financial protection products – you’ll need to purchase an approved MCS financial protection product. For more information, see the MCS financial protection page.
• A new outreach programme – MCS will contact all customers who have had an installation completed by a certified installer.

Risk-based surveillance

The redeveloped scheme also introduces a risk-based assessment model and emphasises processes and controls to deliver quality vs a documented quality management system (QMS).

A new scheme document, Conformity Assessment Guidelines, provides certification bodies (including NICEIC) with guidance on how we should conduct assessments against the redeveloped scheme, including details of the new risk-based surveillance model.

The assessment process is moving to a risk-based model. Your assessment frequency will now be based on calculated risk. There will also be a different approach to assessing your back-office procedures and processes, which removes the emphasis on a formal QMS.

MCS has created four scenarios that consider the size and complexity of your business and its activities. The processes and controls you will be expected to demonstrate during your assessment will now be determined by these operating scenarios, which are outlined in Appendix A of the Installer Operating Requirements.

Before your assessment, we’ll now ask you to complete an annual submission/declaration form, which will gather key information, including your company structure, the number of employees in the work scope, geographic spread, and use of sub-contractors. From this, we can determine your business scenario, which will tell you and us what processes and controls we’ll expect to see.

Our focus during future assessments will be on delivery of technical quality, rather than back-office processes. We’ll look at evidence of appropriate processes and controls that align with the MCS scenarios. Then we’ll assess the effectiveness of these during our site-based assessment of a sample of your installations.

The risk-based surveillance model means the frequency of your assessments will now be determined by a risk calculation. This is based on factors including your business scenario, the number of installations you carry out and years you have held certification, any complaints your business has had, and the number and outcomes of previous assessments.

For some businesses, this means we might not need to assess your business every year, while for others we may be asking to see a few more inst4. allations each year. Please note that new contractors will remain on the standard surveillance schedule for at least two years.

Closer and more direct relationships with MCS

You’ll have a more direct relationship with MCS under the revised scheme. This includes:

• A new Installer Agreement held directly with MCS – a contract between you and MCS that creates a partnership and underlines your mutual obligations. It confirms your business is authorised to operate as an MCS-certified installer.
• A dedicated MCS account manager for support and guidance.

Other changes in roles, terminology and procedures

• The certificate creation window will now be 30 days, rather than 10 days, to align with Building Control.
• A new role of licensee – the person of authority who signs the Installer Agreement to complete the certification process.
• The current MCS ‘nominee’ term will change to ‘main contact’ – the person who handles scheme-related enquires and communicates with NICEIC and MCS.
• The current MCS ‘technical person’ term will change to ‘technical supervisor’ – the person who takes overall responsibility for technical standards and quality on an installation.

What’s next?

NICEIC was approved to deliver the redeveloped MCS Installer scheme on 23 February 2026 and will be transitioning businesses across from 9 March 2026.

• For existing MCS Approved Installers: NICEIC will contact you via email and invite you to transition to the new scheme over the coming months. We are taking a phased approach to ensure we can support each business every step of the way, so don’t worry if you don’t hear from us right away. We expect to have contacted everyone by June 2026.

You’ll be asked to complete a short online transition form that covers a series of simple questions about your business, so we can start the process.

• For new MCS Installer scheme applicants: from 9 March, all new applicants will be automatically assessed under the redeveloped scheme. We will contact each business that has a current application in progress to transition you across to the new scheme.

Under the new scheme you’ll also have direct contact with MCS at the application point. MCS will now do a series of back-office checks on your business, including financial performance, director checks, information about your business in the public domain, previous customer complaints, and any legal proceedings.

In our next MCS blog, we’ll explain how the transition will work for our existing contractors and new applicants. We’ll also show you what MCS:2025 means for your NICEIC assessment in practice and explain what you need to do to prepare.

More information

Check out our recent episode of The Wire covering the MCS changes and what they mean for your business.

Visit the MCS website for the latest scheme updates and to access core documents.

Read our FAQs on MCS:2025.