Green Deal and RHI

So, everybody has heard of the Green Deal Scheme, but what is it all about?

In short it’s a government backed loan to help cover the costs of energy efficiency home improvements. It could not be simpler than that really. The main benefit of this scheme is that should you finance the improvements through Green Deal, then the loan repayment will cost no more than the savings made.

However there are some drawbacks:

  • In order to achieve this loan you have to meet strict criteria; a brief way to under understand if you would be eligible would be to look at whether your total household earnings are less than around £16,000.
  • The finance loan is attached to the house, which may put off some buyers if you ever wanted to move out of your property.
  • And lastly, the loan rate is considerably high, at around 6% APR, and so it may be cheaper to finance it another way.

Recently the advertising standards authority has investigated the Green Deal Finance Company and found it to be misleading. Click for the Telegraphs article providing more information.

If you would like to know more about the Green Deal process and undertand the finance options better, then please see The Energy Savings Trust for a thorough overview.

Renewable Heat Incentives (RHI)

Limitless Energy provides installations, thoughout Wales, which are eligible for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is a UK Government scheme aimed to encourage the uptake of renewable heat technologies through the provision of financial incentives. The government has launched this scheme with an aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help meet targets for reducing the effects of climate change.

Domestic RHI was launched in April 2014, commercial in November 2011, which aims to pay the additional cost of installing renewable technologies, save and even make people money. The RHI will pay participants of the scheme that generate and use renewable energy to heat their buildings, for example through Heat Pumps or Solar Thermal Systems.

Different cash dividends are available for each technology, rewarding the owner of the heating system for each unit of renewable heat produced (measured by kilowatt hour or kWh) with quarterly payments over seven years when installed by an MCS installer (Microgeneration certification scheme) RECC member (Renewable Energy Consumer Code). These vary from 7.3p/kWh for air source heat pumps, up to 19.2p/kWh for solar thermal.

For up to date information please see OGEM’s renewable heat incentives page.

To get an idea of the incentives you could recieve please go to the Governments website for their renewable heat incentive calcuator and just click on Start now >