Renewable Heat Incentive

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is a financial support scheme for renewable heat. The scheme is intended to be open for applications in Spring 2014 and will be administered by the energy regulator Ofgem with the purpose of supporting and rewarding households who move away from fossil fuels for heating their homes.

Working in a similar way to the Feed in Tariff for Solar Photovoltaic systems, owners of heat pumps will be paid on each kilowatt hour of renewable heat their installation generates, for seven years tax-free.

The amount of money you can receive under the Renewable Heat Incentive will be dependent on a number of factors including:

• Type of technology installed (ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps, solar thermal)

• Deemed heat load (the amount of heat likely to be generated by the renewable energy heating system)

The government assumes a 20 year lifetime for renewable heat technologies and has factored in the lifetime (i.e. 20 year) costs of operating the renewable heat system into the tariff values which are paid over 7 years. So, in effect, you are paid for 20 years of operation within a 7 year period.