Opinion
The domestic RHI –
one year on
With biomass responsible for over half of all new dRHI applications, installers
needn’t wait any longer to start offering these products to their customers, says
Robert Burke of HETAS
t’s just over 12 months since
the domestic Renewable Heat
Incentive was launched.
Since the launch we have
been pleasantly surprised by how much
funding has been allocated to support
biomass users. Over half of accredited
installations have been for biomass. It was
always felt that the big market for biomass
would be off-gas grid and in areas where oil
and LPG were seen as expensive options
and high carbon solutions. At the time of the
launch the general feel within the renewables
industry was that solar thermal, heat pumps
and biomass would each take a reasonable
share of the domestic RHI money.
But the RHI is open to everyone to
apply, not just those in off-gas areas, and
heat pumps could be an option for urban
areas with town houses where there is not so
much space. However they do present certain
installation challenges including limited hot
water temperatures which could require
larger radiators on an existing system. There’s
also the issue of using electricity from a grid
that is not yet low carbon. Solar thermal has
its place and is often seen as a great partner
for biomass so that summer and winter
conditions can be met with a combination of
low or zero carbon solutions.
Whilst the original commercial RHI for
larger installations supported mainly biomass
with something like 95 percent of RHI money
supporting this technology, we didn’t initially
think that domestic biomass would get
anywhere near that sort of percentage. The
latest RHI report from DECC which includes
figures up to December 2014 says that 56
percent of new applications for domestic
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RHI have been for biomass with 53 percent
approved at that time. For all heat-pumps the
figure was 32 percent and for solar thermal
it was 13 percent. The figures for legacy
applications present a very different picture
with heat pumps leading, solar thermal next
then biomass. This shows that once the
details of the scheme had been announced
formally and regulation was adopted, biomass
became much more popular.
So what about the appliances and the
installers. At the time of the last official
figures there were 5147 biomass installations.
Today there are 814 MCS approved biomass
products and 804 approved MCS installers.
Not all of the installers are very active in
the market whilst others are very busy. As
biomass becomes the more popular choice
a small number of installers are struggling to
cope with an increasing demand. For gas and
oil installers wanting to take advantage of the
growing market, now is the time to take the
training to convert existing skills to biomass
and to get their MCS certification.
Many installers are having great success
by seeking support from Easy MCS and from
the specialist MCS schemes that concentrate
on being really focused on one or two
areas of the market. It is also proving very
successful and increases the chances of a
great installation where installers get trained
by specific manufacturers who also help with
installation design. These sort of collaborative
relationships reduce errors and increase the
likelihood of poor installations or unhappy
customers.
As for fuel the Biomass Suppliers List
(BSL) has now been established and suppliers
are able to register and sell fuel that proves
the customer is buying sustainably thus
meeting a requirement of RHI. There is still
some work to do on the BSL but progress is
being made and much good work has already
been achieved.