Government launches grants of up to £1,250 for installing a heat pump, solar panels or biomass boiler
A new government initiative, the Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP), will provide around 25,000 people with grants towards the cost of installing a heat pump, solar thermal panels or a biomass boiler.
Grants are geared towards homes which don’t heat with gas and instead use less carbon-friendly fuels such as electric or oil. So if you’re one of the four million households in Britain which doesn’t have gas heating, you could receive a grant of £1,250 to install a ground source heat pump, £950 for a biomass boiler or £850 for an air source heat pump. All households will be eligible for a £300 grant towards installing solar thermal panels.
Climate change minister Greg Barker says of the scheme: “Getting money off an eco heater will not only just cut carbon emissions, it will also help create a market in developing, selling and installing kit like solar thermal panels or heat pumps.”
You can apply for a grant from the 1st August through the Energy Saving Trust (EST) if you live in England, Scotland or Wales and own your property or have permission from the owner to install renewable technology. To be eligible for the RHPP your home must have basic energy efficiency measures such as loft and cavity wall insulation where possible, and have been awarded any necessary planning permissions.
All renewable technology products must be certified by and installed by a member of the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS). In order for the government to gather data about how well renewable heat technology performs, those who take part in the RHPP will also have to answer two surveys and may have an energy meter installed in their home.
The grant scheme is costing the government £15 million and will run till the 31st March 2012. Payments will be issued through vouchers from the EST, which will need to be signed and submitted with a copy of the invoice for installation and MCS certificate before money is paid into the recipient’s bank account.
The RHPP grants form part of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), which is open to business and industry applicants from the 30th September 2011. Under this scheme those who install renewable heat technology will receive annual cash payments based on how many kilowatt hours of renewable heat they’ve generated. It’s thought that the scheme will be open to domestic customers from 2012 – find out more about the RHI here.
According to the EST, over half of the UK’s CO2 emissions come from energy used to generate heat. The government says that its renewable heat incentives will save 4.4 million tonnes of carbon per year between now and 2020.