Why do we need it?
The UK has a number of targets for reducing its contribution to global warming – including a commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Burning fossil fuels to provide heat and hot water in buildings accounts for a large slice of current emissions. The RHI is the government’s attempt to kick-start a move towards heating systems that use renewable energy sources and produce fewer emissions.

How does it relate to the feed-in tariffs?
Like many other countries, the UK has a feed-in tariff to provide financial payments to people and organisations for each unit of electricity they produce using small-scale renewable technologies such as solar photovoltaic panels and wind turbines. The RHI provides a similar set of incentives for heating, and is the first policy of its type anywhere in the world.

When does the RHI start?
The first phase of the RHI focuses on large-scale systems suitable for municipal and commercial buildings. It isn’t yet clear exactly when the first payments will be made, or how they will be administered, but the government has promised all technologies installed since July 2009 will be eligible for future payments.

What about homes?
The domestic version of the RHI won’t launch in full until October 2012, to coincide with the Green Deal, a government policy supporting energy efficiency in homes. In the meantime, £15 million will be made available in grants – called Renewable Heat Premium Payments – to subsidise the cost of installing a domestic-scale renewable heating system. The government aims to announce details of these grants in May 2011 and make them available from July 2011. “Likely levels of support” are £300 for solar thermal; £850 for air-source heat pumps; £1250 for ground-source heat pumps; and £950 for biomass boilers. Recipients of the grants will be expected to provide feedback on their experience using the technology.

Which technologies are covered?
For phase one of the scheme, focusing on large-scale installations, eligible technologies are biomass boilers, ground-source heat pumps, solar thermal collectors, and biomethane (a renewable gas that can either be burned for heat or injecting it into the gas grid). Other technologies are being reviewed for possible future inclusion. For example, air-source heat pumps are expected to be included in the domestic version of the scheme when it launches in 2012.

What are the rates?
Large-scale systems will receive the following tariffs for each kilowatt hour of heat produced:
• 3–4.3p for ground-source heat pumps, depending on the system size
• 8.5p for solar thermal
• 6.5p for biomethane combustion or injection.
• The tariff for biomass boilers is more complex, to remove the possibility that system owners become incentivised to burn more fuel than they actually need. It works out at 1.9–7.6p per kWh of heat, depending on the size of the system and the amount it’s used. The tariffs for the domestic version will be consulted on in October 2011 and announced in due course.

How will the amount of heat produced be monitored?
The RHI will use meters to track the amount of heat being produced at large-scale installations. Details are yet to be confirmed for household systems, but it appears likely that payments will be based on expected use rather than metering, which may not be practical at the domestic scale.

Police have advised homeowners to fit padlocks on their oil tanks and consider installing alarms.

After a big increase in the number of heating oil thefts from domestic tanks located outside property, rural householders have been warned by police to be vigilant.

The price of the fuel has risen by 70% in recent months and criminals are said to be using increasingly sophisticated tactics to target isolated homes.

More than 1.5m homes across the UK, mostly in rural areas, are dependent on heating oil. The increase in the price of the oil and the isolated nature of many of the homes has made them an easy target for thieves.

David Hamilton, a pensioner who had £500 worth of oil stolen from a tank outside his home, said it “doesn’t take much” for an isolated person to get cold without fuel and heating before going “over the edge” towards hypothermia.

Ian Johnson, of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), said thieves “will do anything” to steal fuel. He said anecdotal evidence suggests they are using increasingly sophisticated tactics, “including watching the depots, following the lorries, seeing where [fuel] is delivered and helping themselves to the contents”.

Insurers say the average claim for such a theft is more than £2,000, although Mr Johnson warned that “some insurers don’t cover that”.

The BBC’s Louise Hubbal said: “Police say that the oil is being sold on and can even be used in diesel cars.”

Financially burdened heating oil users hoping to sign up to the government’s Warm Front initiative have been told that no more funds are available.

The blow comes as weather forecasters predict another cold snap to rival the one experienced in the past few weeks.

Energy and Climate Change secretary Chris Huhne announced that resources put aside for the scheme have dried up until the start of the next financial year. That could leave a lot of people, particularly those living in rural areas suffering from fuel poverty exposed to the bitter temperatures predicted over Christmas and beyond.

Although fully subscribed for this year, Mr Huhne insisted that the scheme will aim to help more people in 2011.

“Warm Front will be back and we will make the available funds work harder by focusing help on the oldest and poorest people,” he remarked.

Heating oil prices have been sky-high of late, but Bloomberg has suggested that an increase in crude stockpiles could lead to a slight drop in costs.

Energy bills have risen by around eight per cent when compared with prices this time last year. But for the one and a half million people in the UK who use heating oil to keep their homes warm, prices have soared by ten times that amount. Now energy critics are calling for the government to step in to regulate the market.

The high of this essential commodity has even triggered thefts from home owners oil tank. Leading to one new mother having her heating oil stolen. She only made the discovery after returning home from hospital to find thieves had stolen her family’s oil supply.

As Sarah Holford, 38, from North Newington, was giving birth to daughter Lucie, her oil tank was drilled into and the contents siphoned off.

She was forced spend more than a week living in one room of the house with her new baby with a plug-in fan heater.

A new oil delivery has meant heating has now been restored. So much oil leaked into the garden following the theft  that the family were initially forced to move into a hotel. Mrs Holford’s parents took her other two children Eloise, aged six, and Rebecca, three, out of school to live with them while and her husband Simon stayed to clear up the contamination.

Mitsubishi Electric has announced that the Ecodan® range of residential air source heat pumps is now CERT (Carbon Emissions Reduction Target) funded meaning that all equipment installed and working before 31 March 2011 will be eligible for an average rebate of £500.

“The actual amount that can be claimed will depend on the size of the property and the type of heating being replaced but it could be anything from a couple of hundred pounds for a small flat to around £1,400 for a large house replacing solid fuel,” explains John Kellett, General Manager of the company’s Domestic Heating Systems Division.

The one-off payment is made directly to the home owner, housing association, or landlord and can apply to any domestic property. Higher levels of funding are available to those in priority groups such as the elderly and those on benefits with young children.

Ecodan is the only air source heat pump with an approved Ofgem carbon score and this can now be used for the CERT funding scheme in a partnership between British Gas and Mitsubishi Electric.

The home heating system has quickly established itself as one of the most efficient and effective low carbon alternatives to gas and oil heating.  The Ofgem carbon score is based on extensive field trials that were also scrutinised by a UKAS approved test facility.

During the live trials, Mitsubishi Electric accumulated the equivalent of eight years of monitoring data which Kellett believes was instrumental in achieving the carbon rating and the partnership with British Gas.

“We have proved that Ecodan can cope efficiently through the worst of the British winter and will deliver year-round reductions in both carbon emissions and fuel bills over all traditional forms of heating,” adds Kellett.

The CERT programme has been in existence since 2008 and has focused largely on improving the energy efficiency and insulation of UK homes.  The target is all about reducing CO2 emissions and obliges the energy companies to take steps that ensure the amount of carbon from homes is reduced.

“To help the country move nearer to achieving the targets, the energy companies are all now looking at renewable technologies such as Ecodan and I am delighted that we now have this partnership with British Gas,” ends Kellett.

With £860 million of funding it is anticipated this will rapidly swell the number of air source heat pumps installed into UK homes, having a similar effect to that caused by the Solar PV Feed In Tariff (FITS)

Installations are forecast to increase from a current level of 14,000 heat pumps this year to a level of 50,000 units per year.

According to the published Renewable Heating Incentive documentation, based on a typical 4 bedroom detached house homeowners will receive as much as £1,186 at the end of the first year after installation with continuing payments for the next 18 years.

David Knibbs, Managing Director of ACS Renewable Solutions Ltd said, “This is going to have a pronounced impact on the availability of equipment and lead-times for installation. Despite trebling our install teams and with other new members undergoing intense training, we currently have a two to three week lead-time for new installations. ACS Group Maintenance has also been undergoing a major reorganisation to meet immediate service and support demands.”

It has been recognised for sometime by leading industry commentators that more trained installation engineers for this sector are urgently required.

ACS Renewable Solutions Ltd and sister company Air Conditioning Solutions UK Ltd, are one of the oldest pure air to water heat pump installers in the UK. The group install over 4,000 heat pumps every year, with intense focus on air to water equipment.

David Knibbs explained that many installers have just the one product whereas ACS Renewable Solutions are business partners with Mitsubishi offering their entire range of Ecodan products, also installers for the Daikin Altherma range, Sanyo CO2 and LG’s air source heat pumps.

By 2020 it is projected that 10%-15% of the UK’s heating requirements will be satisfied by Renewable Heating products and the vast majority are forecast to be heat pumps as they provide the only practical, cost effective eligible heating system under the renewable heating incentive guidelines.

Many homeowners will now view the RHI as a compelling reason to install low carbon, low cost and extremely practical replacement heating systems. This new incentive is designed to offer customers an attractive return on investment and will provide them with an extremely cost effective method of reducing their own individual carbon emissions, whether this be residential property or a large commercial or public sector application.

A new educational business venture near Towcester is the latest commercial building to benefit from low carbon, low cost heating supplied by an Ecodan® air source heat pump. The SWAN Rural Enterprise Centre is the brainchild of Nick Brosnan, Heather…

A new educational business venture near Towcester is the latest commercial building to benefit from low carbon, low cost heating supplied by an Ecodan® air source heat pump.

The SWAN Rural Enterprise Centre is the brainchild of Nick Brosnan, Heather Wilson and Sam Fitzgerald as part of the SWAN 14-19 Partnership.   “At the SWAN Centre we aim to bring education and businesses together,” explains Mrs Wilson, formally the Work Related & Enterprise Manager of the SWAN school and now the Centre Manager.  “Not only do we hope to inspire students to professionally learn to grow and cook their own food, but we also provide a forum for businesses to meet their employees of the future.”

The team took funding from the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) to create a full, professional chef’s kitchen situated alongside a working garden to offer students from 14-19 the chance to firstly grow and then receive professional instruction on how to cook their own fruit and veg.   The premises on a former farm, near Towcester, which had diversified into a business park, provide a stunning location offering all the advantages of a rural lifestyle for those that work there.

A 5kW Ecodan air source heat pump delivers low temperature heating to the facility via underfloor heating.  Ecodan harvests free, renewable energy from the outdoor air so that for every 1kW of electricity consumed, at least 3kW of heating is supplied to the property.

The whole system was fitted by ACS Renewable Solutions Ltd, which is a Mitsubishi Electric Approved Ecodan Installer.  The company, which operates out of headquarters in Towcester covers most of the Midlands and East Anglia.

“We have fitted a polycarbonate panel to show off the underfloor pipe work,” explains Commercial Sales Manager, Ray Paice.  “The water tank was installed in the loft space of the single-storey building and we have also made the access panel transparent so that students can see the lit installation.”

The former dairy and barn next door provides a connected space with a working room where up to 24 students can work on a project for the day. In addition, there are smaller working rooms and a SWAN office and conference room.

“We will be holding networking days for employers to meet students who are drawn from 11 Secondary Schools and two Further Education Colleges within South West Northamptonshire,” explains Sam Fitzgerald, SWAN Business Engagement Manager. “One of the key elements is ensuring that students understand the connection between the food they grow and the food they cook.

“In the same way, we wanted a heating system that provided the absolute comfort needed but made the least impact on both our operating costs and our carbon footprint,” she added. “The beauty is that with the way ACS has installed it, the students can see and understand the elements involved.”