• Feed-in tariffs
• Renewable Heat Incentives
• Monitoring Systems

Renewable Heat Incentives (RHI) -
Direct income from your green energy

Applicable to:

• Ground Source Heat Pumps
• Air Source Heat Pumps
• Solar Thermal Systems

UPDATE: December 2011 

July 2011:

Government announces details about the Renewable Heat Premium Payment 

This is an interim scheme to support renewable heat installations before the RHI starts for residential installations in 2012

What is it?

It's like a grant for household renewable heat installations installed after August 2011 and before March 2012 (the household RHI doesn't start until probably October 2012 see more information below).

How much?

The following levels apply to each installation irrespective of size:

Premium Payment levels

A total of just £15m is available for this scheme.

Will everyone be eligible?

No! Except for solar thermal, which is available to any householder, other technologies are only available for households not currently using gas heating.

Householders in England, Scotland and Wales can apply. They must certify that this is their main home and that they have basic energy efficiency measures in place (loft insulation to 250mm and cavity wall insulation, where appropriate).

Both the product and installer must be MCS (or equivalent) certified.

Note also that receiving a Renewable Heat Premium Payment does not automatically mean you'll be eligible for RHI tariff payments.

Timetable and applications

The scheme starts 1 August and closes 31 March 2012.

Householders can request the RHPP in advance, and once registered, receive a voucher for the relevant amount. They must install the renewable heat system within 3 months for solar thermal and 6 months for all the others. Installations must have been completed by 31 March 2012.

Other requirements

Participants must complete 2 surveys.

Some households will also be selected at random to provide further information via meter installations. Agreeing to this if selected is a condition of the scheme – the meters will be installed free of charge.

For further details:

The scheme is administered by the Energy Saving Trust - see details here.

See the governments useful factsheet about the scheme here.

Phase 2 (available from October 2012) – RHI tariffs

People in receipt of the Renewable Heat Premium Payments will be able to receive long term RHI tariff support once these tariffs are introduced, as will anybody who has installed an eligible technology since 15th July 2009.

Whilst Air source heat pumps will be eligible for the Renewable Premium Payment, a decision on whether or not they'll be included in the tariff payments will be based upon consumer feedback on the performance of the technologies. This should be clarified during the early part of 2012 

These tariff payments will start alongside the Green Deal from October 2012 to allow a more whole-house approach to heat production and energy saving.

To keep up to date with the lastest news on the RHI please follow these links:

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/PN2011_023/PN2011_023.aspx

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Sell-your-own-energy/Renewable-Heat-Incentive

Ground Source Heat Pumps

Payments are to be calculated on the annual amount of heat output, expressed in kilowatt hours
(kWh). At a small and medium scale, the amount of heat generated be the equipment is proposed to
be estimated when installed in most cases. This will allow the beneficiary of the incentive to receive
a set amount based on the deemed output, to encourage low energy consumption and discourage
wasting heat.

The RHI will encourage renewable energy systems to be installed in buildings adopting a basic level
of energy efficiency measures in a "whole house approach". A basic minimum level of energy
efficiency required for existing homes would be: at least 125mm of loft insulation and cavity wall
filled where appropriate.

To incentivise households to implement these standards, the scheme proposes to introduce so
called "deemed" (rather than metered) compensation under RHI. This would be done through an
assessment using the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) (or similar) used for energy rating of
buildings to identify the appropriate deemed heating heat demand of the building based on the
assumption that the minimum, energy efficiency measures will have been taken up alongside the
renewable heat installation.

The renewable heat installations will be the sole fixed heating installation in the property (not
counting any immersion heater that may form part of such installation).

The following table outlines approximate savings based on a ground source heat pump providing
100% of space heating in a detached property even without the proposed Renewable Heat Incentive
(RHI) payments.

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Air Source Heat Pumps

The following table outlines approximate savings based on an air source heat pump providing 100%
of space heating in a detached property.

Solar Thermal Systems

Savings in action

• Solar Thermal Savings Live Display >
• PV Savings Live Display - we are currently developing this live link –
  please check back again soon.