UK Renewable Heat Incentive is World's First

Monday 28 November sees the beginning of the world's first Renewable Heat Incentive programme, through which UK-based businesses and households can be rewarded in exchange for heat supplied by the solar thermal systems, heat pumps and biomass boilers they have installed.

The Renewable Heat Incentive will be retrospectively applied in the sense it will cover renewable heat technologies first installed as far back as mid-July 2009 and offer a range of payments, structured around the different technology types.

For every Kilowatt-hour produced by biomass boilers, owners will get a maximum of 7.9 pence, while for every solar thermal kW-h, it'll be up to 8.5 pence. Heat pump-produced kW-h payments, finally, will be capped at 4.5 pence.

Renewable Heat Incentive

Put into motion by the UK's Department for Energy and Climate Change, the UK Renewable Heat Incentive programme's introduction has been moderately delayed, due to EU legislation issues. Now up and running, though, it becomes the first scheme of its kind to be implemented anywhere in the world.

Renewable heat payment wills be made every three months and, according to Greg Barker - UK Energy and Climate Change Minister - the scheme is the catalyst behind a ‘...new era in clean, green heat technology."

The programme is a "...world first and has the potential to put the UK at the forefront of a vibrant new green technology sector", Barker explained, in a statement, adding: "Renewable heat will be a big win for our economy - it will support thousands of green jobs, reduce our dependency on imported fossil fuels, reduce our carbon emissions and help us meet our renewable target."

UK RHI Scheme

The UK RHI scheme is seen as a main driver in helping the United Kingdom achieve its renewable target for the year 2020. The aim is that, over the next nine years, overall UK-produced emissions will have dropped 34 per cent below 1990 levels and, as of March 2011, they'd managed approximately half of this.

Information on how businesses and consumers can make UK Renewable Heat Incentive payment applications had been published on UK energy regulator Ofgem's website.

Image copyright Dergreg - Courtesy Wikimedia Commons