Industry welcomes extra renewable heat support

Renewable heat is to get extra support after initial tariffs proved to be too low to drive take-up, government announced on Wednesday.

Based on new industry data, government plans to raise subsidies for renewable combined heat and power, large biomass boilers, deep geothermal, ground source heat pumps, solar thermal and large biogas plants. It is also bringing in support for air-water heat pumps and energy from waste.

It also published more detail on the Renewable Heat Incentive for households, which is due to be launched in the spring.

Energy minister Greg Barker said the changes “are designed to stimulate considerable growth in the deployment of renewable heating technologies in the coming years”.

Industry bodies welcomed the announcement.

Nina Skorupska, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, said: “We welcome these improvements to the world’s first Renewable Heat Incentive. Although the scheme has under-performed in its first two years, the Government deserves credit for listening to industry’s concerns and implementing many of the necessary changes.

“Mixed messages from Government have unnerved many in the renewables sector lately, so today’s RHI announcement gives a timely boost to the green economy. There is still room for improvement, but what the RHI needs most now is to be left alone for a while, so the market can develop without fear of further changes.”

Roger Webb, director of the Heating & Hotwater Industry Council, said: “We fully support and welcome this programme and like the Government believe it will make a significant contribution towards achieving the 2020 ambition of having 12 per cent of heating coming from renewable sources.”

Heating accounts for around half of the UK’s carbon emissions.