RHI - The Renewable Heat Incentive

12th March 2011

Chris Huhne this morning announced details of the Renewable Heat Incentive. The RHI has been in the pipeline for a long time, and exact details have been a long time coming.

The RHI will start in full in October 2012, a little disappointing from what we were expecting to be announced. At this time, people who have renewable heat installations, such as Ground and air source heat pumps, and solar thermal panels for their hot water, will be eligible for a payment for every kWh that is generated in this way. The payments per kWh will be consulted on later this year.

In the interim, Government has offered a one-off payment, called an RHI 'premium' payment for all installations from July of this year. There are, however, caveats...

Homeowners will have to meet strict elegibilty criteria to qualify, such as having a highly insulated home, be prepared to have the equipment monitored (all installations in this interim period will be monitored for performance), and be prepared to offer feedback on the performance of the installed technology.

When RHI goes live in October 2012, all of the installations that qualify for the premium payment will AUTOMATICALLY qualify for full RHI, and installations going back to July 2009 may also qualify for inclusion.

We still fully suspect at this stage that qualification in all instances will rely on both product and installer to be MCS accreditted, regardless of technology.



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