The answer
What should happen before budget approval?
Before approving a capital budget, establish when the site needs heat, how hot it needs to be, what the existing system serves and whether the electrical connection can support a new plant. Without that baseline, a heat-pump quote is only a product proposal.
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Find the actual heating duty
Annual fuel spend does not reveal peak winter demand, process loads or the temperature needed by different circuits. Gather bills, run hours, controls records and a plant schedule. A building with intermittent occupancy may need different zoning or heat storage from one occupied continuously.
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Test delivery constraints before payback
Plant space, structural access, noise, distribution temperatures, grid capacity and shutdown windows can change the technology and programme. Ask for a staged feasibility result: viable options, assumptions needing measurement, enabling work and the next decision. That lets finance compare projects on more than a nominal efficiency figure.
Where this guidance comes from
Check the original guidance.
These primary sources support the technical or scheme points above. Rules can change; follow the current source before making a commitment.
Apply this to your property
Test a heat-pump option against your site.
A free commercial energy survey can identify the loads, temperatures and site constraints that a credible feasibility study must address.