RHI – otherwise known as the Renewable Heat Incentive – is a financial incentive, designed to encourage more households to install renewable heating solutions within their home.
Promoting the use of renewable heating solutions, the scheme awards those who install the solutions and who meet set criteria with as much as £12,000 cash back over 7-years.
While a popular scheme, it will come to a close in Spring 2022. Therefore, it has never been more important to assess your options for installing a renewable heating system and making use of the Renewable Heat Incentive.
In this article, we’ll provide you with everything you need to know about RHI and how we can help you access it before the scheme comes to a close.
How does the Renewable Heat Incentive work?
Following the payment and installation of a qualifying renewable heating solution, such as an air source heat pump or a biomass boiler, the system can be registered with Ofgem. Should the installation meet the requirements of the application process, Ofgem will then deem you eligible to receive quarterly payments for up to 7-years.
How much your payments are will depend on a few factors. These factors include:
- The amount of heat generated
- Type of solution used
- Inflation
Payments from RHI are designed to cover the difference in costs between installation of a conventional heating system and a modern, renewable heating solution.
Once the incentive period is finished, the cost of the system should have been fully reimbursed to you.
Who is RHI for?
For homeowners – and even for commercial property owners – the Renewable Heat Incentive is available to domestic and non-domestics.
To apply, you must be the owner and have an eligible renewable heating solution installed – which is MCS certified. You must also be able to prove that the property is considered domestic, by having a qualifying Energy Performance Certificate.
So long as you’re the owner, private landlord or social landlord and have an eligible MCS-certified installation, you qualify. It also doesn’t matter whether you’re on or off the national gas grid.
How much can you claim?
Domestic customers can claim quarterly payments for up to 7-years, while non-domestic customers can receive payments for up to 20-years.
The payments are designed to cover the difference in costs between installing a non-renewable system, and a renewable one. How much you can claim depends on the amount of heat generated by your solution, as well as the tariff rate for your specific solution.
Using the UK Government’s Domestic RHI Calculator, you are able to calculate an estimate amount you can receive.
We’re also able to help you out – get in touch with our experts to find out more.
Hurry – it ends soon!
The Renewable Heat Incentive will be closing at midnight on 31 March 2022. Of course, payments will continue to be made for any installation approved, completed and commissioned before this date.
After 31 March 2022, new installations will not receive any such payments from the Renewable Heat Incentive.
The process of applying for RHI payments will vary depending on whether you’re applying the for domestic or non-domestic scheme.