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Subsidies for domestic renewable heating technologies look like being almost a year later than planned, government has admitted. In the meantime, the department of energy and climate change (Decc) has put forward proposals for ensuring the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) stays within its budget and can be controlled predictably.
Ahead of the domestic RHI launch, which Decc said will not be ready until summer 2013, the department will launch a second phase of the Renewable Heat Premium Payment from 2 April.
Householders can claim to help fund installations of eligible technologies such as heatpumps, solar thermal panels and biomass boilers from the £25 million available under the second phase. From that pot, £8 million is set aside for community schemes, said the department, with £10 million for social housing and £7 million for other households.
Ahead of full consultation in the summer, Decc set out interim plans to ensure the RHI does not exceed its budget. Greg Barker said it was “unlikely” that the short-term measures would be needed but that Decc was “taking on board the lessons learned from the Feed-in Tariff scheme”.
The interim consultation looks at giving one months notice to temporarily suspend the scheme to new entrants if 80 per cent of the available budget is spent. Decc wants these measures will be in place by summer and said it would give regular updates on the budget spend.
The formal consulation would look at stepping down tariffs as the scheme grows and as technology and installation costs reduce. Decc said it hoped to lay plans in parliament by November with the rules then in place by the end of the financial year. Because the scheme has taken so long to develop, Decc said the tariffs set out by the previous government in 2010 should not be used as a basis for predicting future support.
The department also promised another consultation in September about increasing the number of technologies under the industrial RHI.
As well, Decc signalled that its Heat Strategy was almost ready and would be published “shortly”.
See the consultation here.
Further reading:
Warm welcome for heat incentive plans
Decc promises RHI clarity “soon”
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