GSHP RHI tariffs double for installations accredited after 21 January 2013
The Department of Energy and Climate Change has announced a review of the Renewable Heat Incentive Tariffs following the recent consultation. The DECC Announcement highlights that "evidence suggests there may be differences between actual costs and load factors of installations and the original assumptions used to calculate the current tariffs" clearly indicating that the original assumptions needed revisiting.
After extensive lobbying of DECC by the GSHPA over an extended period, the Minister has recognised the need to revise the rates for GSHPs and these are expected to lead to a doubling of the RHI tariffs for GSHP installations:
| Renewable Heat Incentive Commercial |
Scale | RHI tariffs pence/kWh current rates |
RHI tariffs pence/kWh rates confirmed December 2013 |
Tariff lifetime in years |
| Ground source heat pumps | up to 100 kW | 4.8 | 8.7 | 20 |
| Ground source heat pumps | over 100 kW | 3.5 | 8.7 | 20 |
| Air to water heat pumps | 0.0 | 2.5 | 20 | |
| Solar thermal | up to 200 kW | 9.2 | 10.0 | 20 |
| Solid biomass | up to 200 kW | 8.6 | 7.6 | 20 |
| Solid biomass | 200-1,000 kW | 5.3 | 5.0 | 20 |
| Solid biomass | over 1,000 kW | 1.0 | 2.0 | 20 |
| Biomethane | All scales | 7.3 | 7.3 | 20 |
RHI rates published by Ofgem for year from 1 April 2013 – rates change with inflation each year.
RHI rates for small biomass fall to 2.0p for use over 15% of the full rated capacity per annum.
RHI rates for ground source heat pumps fall to 2.6p for use over 15% of the full rated capacity per annum.
Revised rates, confirmed December 2013, apply to accreditations from 21 January 2013.
ICAX welcomes the correction in RHI tariffs for ground source heat pump installations
ICAX welcomes the revised rates for GSHP installations which will allow ground source energy to compete for renewable heat installations on the same basis as biomass installations and make a real contribution to reducing carbon emissions.
RHI at last contributes to realistic payback periods for renewable heat
For those using Interseasonal Heat Transfer, the annual clean energy cashback for heating will normally be larger than the annual running cost, thus providing an allowance for the higher initial capital cost of IHT installations.
Timing of changes
The commitment of the Minister, Greg Barker, to increasing the tariffs for the Commercial RHI for GSHPs has repeatedly been made clear, including in Greg Barker's video address to the Ground Source Heat Pump industry on 27 March 2013. He has also confirmed that the increases will take effect from 21 January 2013.
However, DECC officials took a very long time to announced the increases, pleading that they needed more time to research information. Full and extensive information was provided to DECC in 2012 and it is very clear that the information that DECC used to arrive at the initial RHI tariffs for GSHPs in 2011 was seriously flawed.
See Ground Source Heating See Ground Source Cooling See Ground Source Energy
Recent ICAX projects benefiting from the Renewable Heat Incentive:
Merton IGC | Suffolk One College | Tesco Greenfield Supermarket | Wellington Civic Centre
