Supporting the Renewable Heat Incentive

The overall aim of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is to grow the market for systems based on renewable technologies by 700% by 2020 – ie, a total of 110,000 installations.

Current position

Under RHI, building owners who adopt renewable technologies would be eligible to receive a payment of up to 8.5p / kWh dependent on the technology (Solar Thermal, Ground Source Heat Pumps & Biomass are covered). Installations can be back dated to 15 July 2009.  Domestic users can apply for a special RHI ‘premium payment’ to encourage them to install renewable heating. This was expected to deliver 25,000 new installations but has so far delivered less than 3,000 and is due to end on 31 March 2012. Much of this can be put down to the very public legal wrangling over the Feed in Tariffs.

The RHI in phase 1 is commercial and mechanical and installations over 45kW do not need MCS.  Designs must be approved by OFGEM in advance. B&ES is forming a list of persons competent to sign off installations on behalf of OFGEM (the only association to date). B&ES see this is a major business opportunity for members.

RHI payments are also dependent on the correct installation of heat meters.  B&ES are writing a Guide to Good Practice for Heat Meter installations. On completion workshops will be run in conjunction with manufacturers to enable contractors to meet the requirements of RHI.

Next Steps

Phase two of the RHI scheme, a tariff scheme for domestic installations, was due to start in the Autumn of 2012. This was to  coincide with the advent of the Green Deal. This is no longer the case and Phase 2 will now start in early 2013. The Association will monitor the details of the scheme and seek to work with DECC to ensure that members are able to qualify for and derive maximum business advantage from RHI-funding.

Contact

For more details e-mail David Frise