Renewable Heat Incentive.
Information so far is as follows:
From June 2011 capital grants for wood boilers will be replaced with a payment to boiler owners for heat produced. Wood burning
stoves are not included although the issue of back boilers needs to be clarified. In small and medium sized installations both installers and
equipment must be certified by the 'micro certification scheme' or an equivalent standard. Payments will be calculated on the annual
amount of heat output expressed in kilowatt hours (kWh).
The following details proposed by the previous Government are from the consultative document and are currently under review.
Solid biomass Systems below 45kW capacity will be paid an annual flat rate per boiler i.e on 'deemed usage' at 9p /kW/hr. Payments
will be made annually. Deemed payments for small scale installations will be based upon the estimated heating demand for a building,
calculated for each property using the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) rating for domestic properties Solid Biomass Systems
above 45kW but under 500kW will be paid by metered kilowatt at 6.5p/kW/hr. Payments will be made quarterly. Solid Biomass systems
above 500kW will be paid by metered kilowatt at 1.6-2.5p/kW/hr but these larger systems will not have the MCS or equivalent standards
imposed. It is proposed that the tariff or contract lifetime of these payments will be 15 years.
Eligible installations completed after the 15th July 2009 but before the the start of RHI will benefit from the scheme as if they had been
installed on the date of it's introduction. The RHI scheme will remain open to new projects until at least 2020 and tariff levels will be
reviewed from time to time. It is unclear whether the payments would be linked to inflation or not and the issue of tax on payments
is still to be determined by the treasury.
Clarification of the above is due to be released before the end of 2010. |