RHI reforms and the new assignment of rights

The Renewable Heat Incentive launched in 2011 and has encouraged 60,000 renewable appliances to be installed since its launch, with the National Audit Office predicting 111,000 installations by 2020. The Renewable Heat Incentive will therefore fall short of original expectations which were aiming to complete 500,000 installations over the 9 year period.

The RHI has not managed to achieve the expectations which were set out for it, to expand the use of renewable heating systems and reduce carbon emissions. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reported in Spring 2018 that the scheme had received a low take up because it had failed to understand what consumers want and what stopped them participating in the scheme.

One of the barriers which has been highlighted is that the RHI has not been able to help those who are unable pay the upfront costs of installing a renewable heating system, even though they may be eligible to claim the RHI payback, not having the available capital to fund the installation has been a barrier to them installing a renewable heating system.

With the new RHI reforms there are amendments which will help resolve these problems.
The government has still committed to funding a reformed RHI programme until March 2021 and therefore the following changes have been introduced.

• Tariff uplifts: ASHP 10.18p/kWh and GSHP 19.86p/kWh guaranteed until 30th September 2018
• Metering for Perfomance: All new applications for heat pumps to the Domestic RHI scheme will have to have one of 3 types of electricity metering options.
  1. Electricity meters
  2. On-board electricity meters
  3. Metering and monitoring service package (MMSP)
• Heat demand limits: To ensure all subsidy payments are value for money, they will be paid on either the annual heat demand listed on the property EPC or the heat demand limit, whichever is the lower. The annual heat demand limits for ASHP are 25,000 kWh and GSHP are 30,000 kWh.
• Assignment of rights: A new option in the reform which came into effect on 27th June 2018 is the assignment of rights to help householders access finance, they will be able to assign the rights to an investor who has been approved as a registered investor by Ofgem.
• MCS standards: Your installer needs to be MCS registered to version 5.0 of MIS 3005 to enable you to make a claim for RHI payments.

If you are interested in installing an Air Source or Ground Source Heat Pump then give us a call on 01603 898904 to discuss your options.