What is the Renewable Heat Incentive?

The Renewable Heat Incentive is a fixed payment for the renewable heat that you generate yourself.

The Renewable Heat Incentive is very similar to the Feed-in Tariff ' s, a comparable scheme for electricity which went live in April 2010. The Feed-In Tariff has done more than anything else to accelerate the installation of renewable energy capacity in Europe.

The Government have confirmed as part of their comprehensive spending review that Renewable Heat Incentives will go ahead as planned. The exact details of the scheme including the rates and the lifetime of payments are still provisional and are subject to the Government's response to this year's consultation. Either way, Renewable Heat Incentives will make installing a Solar Hot Water system a worthwhile investment.
The aim of the incentive is to increase heating generation from renewable energy sources to 12 per cent which could potentially save up to 60 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020.

Heating currently accounts for 47 per cent of the UK’s CO2 emissions and 60 per cent of average domestic energy bills.
The aim of the RHI is to offer the first comprehensive framework of support for renewable heat in the UK. The (REA) Renewable Heating Association has put forward the scheme to encourage individuals to switch to renewable heat alternatives as heat is the biggest use of energy in the UK, and is mainly supplied by fossil gas.
So to counteract the UK’s shortfall in renewable heat energy, the RHI is offering a long-term stable framework of tariffs to inspire confidence in consumers to deflect to renewable and drag the technology into the mainstream for all types of heating requirements.

The RHI will pay a fixed amount per year to those who opt to change from heating systems operated by fossil fuels to renewable options such as solar water heating panels
The payments made will either be made on the exact amount of heat produced or on the amount it is anticipated the installation will provide. The former means you’ll need to have a meter fitted to your system, in the same way as gas and electricity is metered, to account for the heat produced while the latter is paid on an estimate.

Who can claim the tariffs?
Anyone who installs a renewable energy system producing heat after 5th July 2009 is eligible to claim the Renewable heat Incentive. There is no upper limit to the size of heat equipment eligible under the Renewable Heat Incentive. This differs to the feed-in tariffs where a 5MW ceiling has been applied.
How much are the tariffs
The Solar installation should be suitable and efficient enough to produce up to 90% of the hot water requirements during the summer months.
Based on a 2 plate system with a 180L cylinder and covering a 4.75sqm gross area you could expect the annual Solar input to be around 1100kWh. This should therefore generate an income of around £200 per year.

Further benefits are:
Annual hot water savings equal to approx.
250 free baths and 530 free showers.
Annual co2 saving approx. 0.30t.
Derby Solar Ltd will register your Solar installation with the relevant bodies upon
completion to ensure you have access to the relevant tariff.

The tariffs and lifetimes proposed in the current consultation for
 domestic-scale systems (less than 20 kW for solar water heating
 or less than 45 kW for all other technologies) are set out below.
 Please see the consultation documents on the Department of Energy and Climate Change
 website for tariffs for medium and large scale systems.

Technology p/kWh Lifetime (years)
Solar water heating 18 20
Ground source heat pump 7 23
Air source heat pump 7.5 18
Biomass 9 15
Bioliquids 6.5 15

The information below is based on the original RHI consultation document.