21 February 2012: Angie Bray, MP for Central Ealing and Acton, asked the following question in Parliament on the extent of the operation of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) in London:
Angie Bray: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change how many organisations in London have received support from the Renewable Heat Incentive to date. [94815]
Gregory Barker: None of the five installations accredited to date by Ofgem for support from the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme are based in London. Payments under the scheme will be made on a quarterly basis following submission of eligible heat usage data. We expect to make the first payments in March.
The RHI tariffs are paid for 20 years to eligible technologies with payments being made for each unit (kWh) of renewable heat which is produced. The second phase of the RHI scheme will see it expanded to include more technologies as well as support for households. Further information is posted on the DECC website.
The RHI is to be introduced in two phases. The scheme opened for non-domestic applications on 28 November 2011 and, as the answer outlines, only a few schemes have been accredited to date, none of which are in London.
In the interim to Phase 2 being launched, the Government also introduced a grant funding programme, the Renewable Heat Premium Payment scheme, which will run from 1st August 2011 to 31st March 2012. As detailed previously (here and here), the grants will be focused on ‘non-gas grid’ sites, and hence London will miss out on receiving any support for the installation of technologies such as heat pumps, solar thermal panels and biomass boilers.
The RHPP is managed by the Energy Saving Trust (EST) who produce weekly statistics on the grants given out. Disappointingly they do not provide detail of the grants given out by county or local authority, only by country. The latest (15 February) statistics can be seen here. It’s interesting to note that with just over a month of the scheme still to go, only £3.9m of the £15m RHPP funds appear to be allocated.