For off mains gas areas I feel it is only fair that the RHI should be available for new builds. If I did not fit a HP then I would be burning oil or wood or LPG. If or when the grid becomes greener then I will be doing a little to help. The additional financial cost for me was in the £8,000 region. The RHI would help a great deal in justification for this additional cost. If the RHI ever does actually come in that is?
Gusty.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/02/green-deal-solar-panels
Article includes proposal for 25 million homes to be eligible for grants to instal wood burning stoves and biomass boilers.
Where is that cliff you recommend S.T. ?

The Green Deal is just the finance side for people who do not have the cash sitting around. How far £10k will stretch is another matter.

And separately, it also looks like HMRC are planning to remove the ECA for commercial RHI systems from next April:

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_ConsultationDocuments&propertyType=document&columns=1&id=HMCE_PROD1_031306

Posted By: tedDECC have just said they expect to announce RHPP scheme details in the first week Parliament returns from recess - w/c 7th June.

RHPP - Renewable Heat Premium Payment - is the interim 'grant' for first year of domestic RHI payments.

So a slight slip from the stated aim of in May. At least this should give a good idea of the eligibility criteria for RHPP although I think it still has to be approved by Parliament (in July?).

Hopefully, it will give some indication of the final eligibility criteria for domestic RHI (October 2012?) although they probably won't be available until after another extensive round of consultation and feedback from RHPP installations.

It will be interesting to see if RHPP for solar thermal requires a certified heat meter or Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) to qualify.

I have a recently fitted solar thermal system and I'm not sure if I had a certified heat meter retrofitted I could claim that it completed the commissioning thus allowing me to gamble for the chance of £300 in the RHPP dash for cash. The heat meter and fitting would almost certainly cost more than the RHPP "grant" even assuming I was both eligible and near the front of the queue. So the best I and other post July 2009 installations can hope for is a possible discount on a heat meter that may not be required for domestic RHI.

Posted By: Slowmo45 In my view, there is no certainty that any installation completed between July 15 2009 and the date that the RHI is launched will become eligible. Indeed, receipt of the Premium Payment will not necessarily ensure eligibility for the full RHI.

The Press Release of 10 March 2011 which trumpeted World's First Renewable Heat Incentive Launched to Reduce Emissions stated the the following for households: Those taking up the Premium will then be eligible for a RHI tariff from October next year when the Green Deal begins, as will anyone else who has had eligible equipment installed from July 2009. Still plenty of scope to weasle out or go for the old fashioned U-turn. I wonder if Chris Huhne is in the driving seat?

Another week without the oft promised details on the eligibility criteria for the Renewable Heat Premium being published. That doesn't leave much time if applications are due to be processed next month!

Anyone heard anything beyond the DECC's will be published shortly?

The RHI Regulations 2011 are still in draft:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2011/9780111512753/contents

The proposed tariffs are in Schedule 3. These all relate to non-domestic systems. These are all fractionally higher than the originally published tariffs (apart from solar thermal) as an extra year of RPI has now been applied to the rates.

There are a couple of recent documents available from Ofgem via the following:

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/e-serve/RHI/Pages/RHI.aspx

Mostly about the first phase of RHI which, it says, is expected to begin on 30 September 2011 subject to Parliamentary and State Aid approval.

It describes Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) as a grant scheme (Shome mishtake, shurely? Ed).

see http://www.aecb.net/PDFs/Biomass_A_Burning_Issue_September_2010.pdf

This short discussion shows that wood causes twice as much CO2 as gas, then there are the adverse pollution issues to consider especially in the urban environment.

Just seen this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jul/07/energy-bill-shelved

The government's energy bill, which was expected to be debated before parliament's summer break, has been shelved.

Wonder how this will affect RHPP; RHI, Green Deal? Probably more delays ...

Posted By: tedThe RHI legislation is a Statutory Instrument that just relies on Section 100 of the Energy Act 2008 which is already in force, so any delay to the current Energy Bill is no excuse for a delay to RHI.

Thanks, Ted. So the relevant legislation (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/32/pdfs/ukpga_20080032_en.pdf) is in place but what are missing are the regulations which the Secretary of State may make covering domestic RHI. So it is still possible that details of RHPP and domestic RHI may appear.

The draft RHI SI legislation was discussed yesterday by the First Delegated Legislation Committee in parliament - see the Hansard report here - http://bit.ly/nVV2Rz

Oops posted this on "fuel for 21st century"...so apologies if read...but a friend sent me this which seems to sum things up with RHI...

"If you care about social justice and the planet you'll avoid. It is socially unjust as energy companies have to charge everybody else (the proles) more to let you middle class canny investors qualify for the transfer from them to you in form of hefty subsidy. Planet suffers as this is poor solution in real resource and carbon terms. The natural economics (real costs of manufacture versus output) reflect this, as they must. It's a political trick to appear green and meet some dubious targets without having to face big investment issues (eg tidal barrage systems) or shrieking locals ganging up to fight bigger more effective technologies like wind turbines or smelly waste incinerators. Not to mention fact that if we really cared we'd invest in unsexy, makes no-one rich, conservation and insulation measures; and hit the flyers who pay no fuel tax and are thus effectively subsidised by all other transport users.

Reminds me of fox hunting. If you care about animal welfare look to control animal husbandry practices. If you want cheap political capital: save a handful of foxes. Small local and ineffective can generate the headlines at low cost. Big stuff difficult and politically fraught.

As I recall the numbers (with subsidy) show a return that's not that bad against alternatives. Not mind-blowingly brilliant but on a par with decent defensive big cap stocks. So it remains a matter of conscience."

Posted By: tedgiving away free money

Free at the point of delivery, even my euro millions win was not really free

Here is the DECC Factsheet:

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/renewable_ener/incentive/factsheet/factsheet.aspx

For solar thermal there is no off gas grid requirement and neither is an EPC or a heat meter required. Also you will need to confirm you have loft insulation to 250mm and cavity wall insulation, where these measures are practical. I have 150mm of Celotex FR4000 (100mm between rafters, 50mm below) and full-fill cavity wall insulation so have a good chance of meeting these requirements.

Once the equipment is up and running, you will be asked to fill in two customer surveys. You may be chosen at random to have extra meters attached to your installation (free of charge) as we are keen to monitor and learn about how heating systems are used in practice in various different circumstances and types of home. It is a condition of the scheme that you are happy to have these meters installed. I would be happy to do this especially if I could keep the extra meters!

So I could possibly apply, maybe receive a voucher, and not be able to cash it in as my system already installed.

Are there any benefits for post July 2009 solar thermal system owners submitting applications? Maybe some form of pre-qualification for domestic RHI?

Presumably the final eligibility criteria for solar thermal domestic RHI will not be available until after the results of the RHPP experiment have been analysed.