What is the Renewable Heat Premium Payment?

This is a UK Government scheme designed to help you afford renewable technologies for your home, such as:

• Solar thermal panels
• Heat pumps ( air source, ground source or water source), and
• Biomass boilers

The Renewable Heat Premium Payment scheme will run from 1 August 2011 – 31 March 2012. However, you can register your interest beforehand.

Who can apply for the Renewable Heat Premium Payment?

If you live in England, Scotland or Wales, you are eligible to apply for the Renewable Heat Premium Payment.

No matter how you currently heat your home and how much fuel you already use, anyone can apply for solar thermal panels. However, if you currently rely on oil, liquid gas, solid gas or electricity then you could also apply for air, ground - or water - source heat pumps and biomass boilers.

So only those who do not currently use gas as their main heating fuel can apply for these technologies.

If you have any further questions about whether you can apply, please feel free to give one of our friendly advisors a call on: 0800 512 012.

Taken from Energy Saving Trust

Renewable Heat Incentive to Launch in July With Phase One: The Premium Payment Initiative

LEICESTER, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwire - June 17, 2011) - From July, the Renewable Heat Incentive comes into force and Heat Pump Guide, the UK's leading resource for exhaust, ground and air source heat pumps, says the launch of the Renewable Heat Incentive is an ideal way to encourage more and more homeowners and businesses to switch to using renewable energy.

The first phase of the RHI kicks off with the RHI Premium Payment, which will see up to 25,000 installations supported by a one-off Premium Payment, which has been designed to help people cover the purchase price of green heating systems. Those taking up the Premium will then be able to apply for a RHI tariff - the second phase of the initiative - which comes in to play in autumn 2012, when the Government's Green Deal begins, as will anyone who has had eligible equipment installed from July 2009. The tariff, which will run for 20 years, will provide fixed annual payments to people who install renewable heating systems.

A renewable heat system is any type of device which allows a property to generate central heating and water heating from a renewable source of energy, like the sun or air. There will be clear eligibility criteria in order to qualify for a Premium Payment and recipients need to have a well-insulated home based on its energy performance certificate and must agree to give feedback on how the equipment performs.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) have announced that the following amounts are likely to be available:

- Solar Thermal - £300/unit

- Air Source Heat Pumps - £850/unit

- Biomass boilers - £950/unit

- Ground Source Heat Pumps - £1,250/unit

Read more...

Energy bills are set to cost households £1,250 a year on average after five of the 'Big Six' utility firms have announced price hikes to their tariffs.

According to figures from uSwitch.com, as many as 24.6 million customers will be affected by pre and post-Christmas price increases, with E.ON becoming the latest firm to announce rises of three per cent for gas and nine per cent for electricity from February 4th. Read more

The UK needs to move away from fossil fuel based heating to forms of electric heating like heat pumps

Heat pumps use electricity to extract heat from the environment, usually from the ground or the air around us. Over three quarters of the energy produced by the heat pump comes for free from a sustainable, renewable source. Unlike other sources of renewable energy like wind and solar, the heat in the ground or the air is always available for use.

Professor David Mackay, the newly appointed Chief Scientific Officer for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, has reiterated his support for heat pump technology in comments he made recently.

“Setting fire to chemicals like gas should be made a thermodynamic crime,” he said. “If people want heat they should be forced to get it from heat pumps. That would be a sensible piece of legislation.”

Professor Mackay made his comments as part of wide ranging analysis of the problems the UK faces in meeting the challenge of climate change. He believes that the UK needs to move away from fossil fuel based heating to forms of electric heating like heat pumps. The low carbon electricity needed will be generated from a big increase in nuclear capacity as well other renewable sources like wind and solar, according to Professor Mackay. Almost 50% of the UK’s CO2 emissions are generated heating buildings, mostly through the burning of gas and oil.

Some European countries, like Sweden have already moved to a low carbon electricity generating grid using a combination of nuclear and renewables. It’s no surprise that heat pumps are now used to heat nearly all new houses in Sweden.

“North Sea gas is running out fast and other sources of gas may prove unreliable over time,” Murray Treece, Managing Director of Econic commented. “We quickly need to useother ways to heat our homes and heat pumps are one of very few viable alternatives to provide the central heating and hot water we’ve become used to.”