THE DOMESTIC Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) has just been announced for Spring 2014, meaning households in England, Scotland and Wales will be able to earn money back on any heat they generate using the following renewable heating technologies:
Solar thermal / biomass burners / air source heat pumps / ground source heat pumps
(For information about the tariff rates and how much you can earn, click here for our RHI page.)
"Householders can now invest in a range of exciting heating technologies knowing how much the tariff will be for different renewable heat technologies and benefit from the clean green heat produced" - Climate Change Minister Greg Barker.
Some background
The RHI is the first incentive for renewable heat in the world. It’s been developed to help the UK achieve its ambitious carbon reduction targets. There is already the RHI for non-domestic buildings such as offices, hotels and warehouses, and the domestic version has been eagerly awaited by customers and industry since 2010, when its predecessor, the Low Carbon Building Programme, ended. However, consulting delays and other kinks have set back the domestic RHI repeatedly, a postponement of several years. Finally it has been scheduled, and we shall have it in Spring 2014.
Here is some more information:
Who qualifies?
The domestic RHI applies only to homeowners in England, Scotland and Wales.
The scheme will be available to homeowners, private and social landlords, third party owners of heating systems and people who build their own homes.
To be eligible for the RHI you must first go through with a Green Deal Assessment, to ensure your property is properly insulated etc.
If your heating system was installed after July 15th 2009 you could be eligible for the RHI.
How much can you earn?
Biomass burners – 12.2p/kWh
(Based on estimate of the property's heat demand).
Solar thermal – 19.2p/kWh
(Based on estimate of solar thermal system performance completed as part of the MCS installation).
Air source heat pump – 7.3p/kWh*
Ground source heat pump – 18.8p/kWh*
(Heat pump output is based on estimate of heat demand from household's Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), combined with estimate of heat pump efficiency).
Payback length is seven years.
There is extra incentive if you agree to install metering and monitoring service packages:
£230 p/a for monitoring heat pumps.
£200 p/a for monitoring biomass
Index linked payback
As well as being good news for anyone working with insulation or renewable heating technology, the RHI is another incentive scheme based around energy for people to earn extra money. It will be administered by Ofgem and index-linked, so over time will hold up as an investment. However DECC will gradually reduce the tariff just as with all its energy incentives. At a time of rising energy prices, anything that encourages consumers to buy a long-term energy solution AND rewards them for it, should prove to be a success.