A new green homes pledge is being launched to help reduce gas and electricity bills by £450 a year for those on the lowest incomes.
The Department for Business said 50,000 families will be able to save money on bills under a new £562million investment to improve social housing.
It will pay for cavity wall insulation, replace boilers with heat pumps and install solar panels on roofs.
The scheme is the local authority element of the controversial green homes grant which offers people £5,000 and £10,000 vouchers to help them better insulate their homes.
The green homes grant is a £2bn investment to help make homes more efficient. In theory, it could reduce bills by hundreds of pounds a year by improving heating and boilers - but in the past six months the take-up has been just 10% of what was promised due to government delays.
There were more than 123,000 applications for the grant by the end of February, according to data released last week by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but only 28,000 vouchers had been issued and only 5,800 measures had been installed.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: "We are ensuring households across the country enjoy warmer homes that are cheaper to heat and emit fewer emissions - while creating new work for local plumbers, builders and tradespeople."
"This is an initial down payment on the UK Government's plan to invest over £9 billion into eradicating fuel poverty, improving the lives and homes of low-income households."
Figures show domestic properties currently account for around 25% of the UK's total carbon emissions – and the government wants to reduce this by 70,000 tonnes a year through the scheme.
It has a wider target to reach zero emissions by 2050.
The scheme will be available to low-income families and social housing tenants with an annual income of £30,000 or less.
As part of the scheme, funding will go to every English region and Scotland.
Aberdeen City Council, for instance, has been awarded £2.2million to retrofit 100 homes, Leeds Council has been handed £10million to upgrade 600 homes and Manchester Council has been given £3.12million to upgrade 164 homes across the city.
Portsmouth City County has been awarded one of the highest budgets at £9.4million to upgrade 1,200 homes.
The local council will help residents with a combined household income below £30,000 and an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of E, F or G to address fuel poverty and reduce the county’s carbon emissions.
