New Climate Change Agreements regulations come into force on 1 January 2027, and they keep commercial cold storage and product freezing on the list of activities that can qualify for a cut in the Climate Change Levy. If you run a cold store or a freezing site, a climate change agreement is the main route to a lower electricity levy, and the next application window opens on the same day.

One correction to a line you may have seen elsewhere. Cold storage is not newly eligible. The sector has had its own umbrella agreement on GOV.UK since 2013, and the new rules consolidate the existing description rather than invent it. What is new is the paperwork around it and the 2027 levy rise.

What the regulations actually do

The instrument was made on 7 July 2026 as SI 2026 No. 826. It revokes and remakes the old energy-intensive installations rules and sets out one schedule of qualifying activities. Its explanatory note says paragraphs 1 to 38 of that schedule combine the descriptions already in the earlier regulations, and the new additions are plastic recycling, spirits packaging and EV battery cells.

Cold storage sits in paragraph 12. It covers "a building where the predominant business activity is commercial temperature controlled storage or product freezing", and the eligible processes are all processes and activities involved in that cooling, freezing or storage. The regulations come into force on 1 January 2027.

The levy, the discount and the April 2027 rise

The Climate Change Levy is a charge added to business energy bills. GOV.UK says "there are reduced rates if you're already in the climate change agreement scheme", and the published discount is 92% on electricity and 89% on gas. On the levy rates page, the main electricity rate is £0.00801 per kWh from 1 April 2026 and £0.00827 per kWh from 1 April 2027, a rise of roughly 3%.

As an illustration only, take a cold store using 1,000,000 kWh a year. At the main rate that is £8,010 of levy from April 2026 and £8,270 from April 2027. With the 92% reduction, the levy falls to roughly £641 and £662. Your own figure depends on your meter data and your agreement, so treat this as scale, not a quote.

Cold stores run compressors and evaporator fans around the clock, so electricity is the bill that matters here. The discount is not free money. The guidance describes a voluntary scheme in which eligible facilities "may qualify for a reduction in the climate change levy, in return for meeting energy efficiency or carbon saving targets".

Who can join, and the metering test

The Environment Agency is the administrator, and it decides eligibility. The statutory guidance, updated on 24 February 2026, says the scheme now runs for the period 1 January 2026 to 31 March 2033. A facility counts as eligible only if at least 70% of the reckonable energy supplied to it is intended for use in the qualifying installation or parts of it.

That 70% rule is where metering matters. The guidance says that where an operator reasonably estimates at least 70% of the energy supplied to the site is used in the installation, no permanent sub-metering is required and the main site meters are enough. Below 70%, permanent sub-metering of the installation is required. A cold store sharing a site with offices, a packing hall or a tenant's unit may well sit near that line.

On timing, the guidance says new entrants can apply to join an existing umbrella agreement between 1 January and 31 August each year from 2026 to 2029. The 2026 window has closed, so a site that is not in the scheme should be preparing for 1 January 2027.

What to do now

  • Pull 12 months of half-hourly or monthly electricity data and see how much of the site's load is cold storage or freezing.
  • If the 70% test is borderline, price up sub-metering before the window opens, not after.
  • Read the cold storage umbrella agreement, which GOV.UK describes as the document setting out the sector association's obligations, and contact that association about joining.
  • Remember the targets. A discount that depends on efficiency means plant condition counts, so a coil that is icing up or a condenser that is struggling is costing you twice. Planned commercial refrigeration maintenance is where much of that gets caught.

We will keep covering the rules that touch cold rooms and freezers in our regulation and compliance news. This article is a summary of public guidance, not legal or tax advice, so check the scheme details with the administrator before you commit.