The Renewable Heat Incentive is a fixed payment from the UK Government for the renewable heat you generate yourself.
The RHI will become payable in October 2012, and will guarantee long-term payments for each kWh of renewable heat produced.
The Renewable Heat Incentive is aimed at everyone, including households, landlords, businesses, farmers, schools, hospitals, care homes and more. The RHI scheme can be used by entire communities, coming together to invest in a renewable scheme from which they will all use the heat and share the income.
There are three steps to making use of the RHI:
- 1: you install in your property renewable heat systems such as solar thermal panels, heat pumps or a biomass boiler
- 2: you measure how much heat your renewable energy systems produce
- 3: The Government will pay a fixed amount based on that output, the type of technology and the size of the system.
The Renewable Heat Incentive is similar to the Feed-in Tariffs, a similar scheme for electricity generation, with some important differences:
- It will be paid for by the Treasury not by energy users.
- There is no ‘National Grid for Heat’ and so importing and exporting heat is not relevant.
- It will be introduced in phases, with residential schemes not eligible until Phase 2.