The situation with the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is a little confusing.  Mainly because the details will not be finalised until this Summer (when exactly, who knows!).  If you are interested, you can sign up for email alerts on the Dept of Energy and Climate Change here for details once they are released.

The principle is pretty straightforward – for ground source heat pumps the incentive is between 12.5-17.3p/kWh for each kWh of energy produced by the heat pump.  The incentives are different for other forms of heat pumps.  The rates will be confirmed when the RHI is finalised later on this year.  The incentive is payable over a 7 year period.

There are some criteria attached to receiving the payments, so do make sure that you have a good look at the material that is currently available.  You will also need to ensure that your installation is fully certified.  Most reputable heat pump suppliers/installers will handle the certification for you.

So what is the bottom line for us?  Well, we know the annual kWh as this was calculated when the suppliers worked out the sizing of the heat pump.  From the calculations, it looks as if our installation will produced around 15,000kWh per year.  At the higher rate, the RHI would be around £2,500 per year.  So over a 7 year period, this is equivalent of £17,500.  This almost covers the cost of the installation in the first place.

You will find more information here…….

UK Government website
https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/increasing-the-use-of-low-carbon-technologies/supporting-pages/renewable-heat-incentive-rhi

Energy savings trust
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generating-energy/Getting-money-back/Renewable-Heat-Incentive-RHI
I rang them to get some more information on RHI and they couldn’t tell me anything more that what was on their website.  Maybe things will improve once the details are finalised.