Renewable Heat Incentive

At present, around 95% of the home heating in the UK is provided by fossil fuels; mostly gas boilers. World supply of natural gas is depleting and thus becoming more expensive, as well as contributing significantly to the UK’s carbon emissions.

In order to encourage the uptake of alternative heating solutions, the government has recently introduced The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). Following the initial success of the Feed-in Tariff, the Government was keen to introduce a similar system for low carbon and renewable heating technologies.

Financial support for low carbon heating solutions

On the 10th March 2011, the government Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced that the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme would take place in two Phases.

Phase 1 will focus on encouraging renewable heating technologies in the commercial and industrial sector but there will also be grant payments to help with installation costs in domestic properties. These upfront financial aids will be collectively known as the Renewable Heat Premium Payments.

Here is a table that shows the rates for Premium Payments for domestic installations. Please note these are one-off payments which are designed to help with the up front costs. People in receipt of the Renewable Heat Premium Payments will be able to apply for the full RHI tariff support once the scheme is introduced in Autumn 2012, as will anybody who has installed an eligible technology since 15th July 2009.

Further details on these payments and how to claim them can be found at the Energy Saving Trust website and you can apply for a premium payment here. 

Solar Thermal	£ 300 / unit
Air source heat pump	£ 850 / unit
Biomass	£ 950 / unit
Ground source heat pump	£ 1250 / unit

 

Phase 2 will commence in October 2012. The finer details of this phase will be announced later in 2011 but it has been assured that anyone who has installed an ‘eligible technology’ in a domestic property since 15th July 2009 will be entitled to retrospective index-linked tariff payments when they are launched in 2012. This includes people who are on the premium payments scheme. The DECC website assures that further details will be published shortly on the eligibility criteria for the Renewable Heat Premium, but will include the following principles:

• a fair spread of technologies across all regions of Great Britain, including biomass, solar thermal and heat pumps (including air source heat pumps)
• monitoring to enable government, manufacturers, installers and consumers to better understand how to make sure ‘real life’ users get the most out of them, and to inform decisions on the tariff levels and other scheme parameters for phase 2
• a well insulated home based on its energy performance certificate
• a householder must agree to monitor and record performance
• A focus on people living off the gas grid, where fossil fuels like heating oil are both more expensive and have a higher carbon content.

 

If you have any questions about the RHI, see here for some RHI FAQs or contact us to ask a question.