Renewable Heat Premium Payment Phase 2

The Renewable Heat Premium Payment is a one-off grant designed to help towards meeting the costs of installing renewable technologies in your home, until the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is introduced for domestic customers.

Phase Two Extension

An extension to the Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) scheme was announced by the Department of Energy and Climate Change on 26 March 2013. The scheme is being extended until the end of March 2014, ahead of the RHI scheme for householders.

The extension continues to offer one-off grants to householders across England, Scotland and Wales to help with the cost of installing renewable heating technologies and will also include a competition for registered social landlords to bid for funds to install renewable heat technologies.

Applicants should note that even though the RHPP scheme is being extended, householders who applied before 31 March 2013 must have redeemed their voucher by their stated voucher expiry date or 31 March 2013, whichever was sooner. If you missed the stated deadline, you will be able to re-apply as long as all the eligibility criteria are met.

Changes to the Householder Stream

Key changes have been made to the householder stream of the Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) announced by the Department of Energy and Climate Change on 20 May 2013.

As part of the Depaetment of Energy and Climate Change's desire to further support the growing market for domestic renewables, the Government has considered new data available on installation costs/recent feeedback from industry and has decided to increase the voucher levels for each of the four eligible technologies. The new levels are:

Technology	Voucher value
Air-to-Water Heat Pump	£1,300
Biomass Boiler	£2,000
Ground or Water-source Heat Pump	£2,300
Solar Thermal Hot Water	£600

These levels will be effective for voucher applications made on the Energy Saving Trust (EST) website from 20 May 2013. We hope the additional money available will encourage even more people to consider switching to renewable heating.

In addition, new applicants from 20 May 2013 will also be required to undertake a Green Deal Assessment before submitting a claim for payment of their voucher. The Assessment will help consumers to choose the most appropriate new technology for their home and circumstances. As the voucher levels are being increased, this additional money will cover the costs of an Assessment.

If you already have an RHPP voucher or have received payment of an RHPP grant please see the RHPP FAQs for more information.

For more information on the changes to the scheme please see the RHPP FAQs.

For information on the Green Deal and how to get a Green Deal Assessment please call our advice line (in England, Northern Ireland and Wales: 0300 123 1234; in Scotland: 0800 512 012) or visit our Green Deal web pages.

What is the Renewable Heat Premium Payment?

This is a UK Government scheme designed to help you afford renewable technologies for your home, such as:

biomass boilers
heat pumps ( air to water, ground source or water source but excluding air to air and exhaust air heat pumps), and
solar thermal panels

The amount received as part of the Renewable Heat Premium Payment scheme depends on which technology you are applying for:

Technology	Voucher value
Air-to-Water Heat Pump	£1,300
Biomass Boiler	£2,000
Ground or Water-source Heat Pump	£2,300
Solar Thermal Hot Water	£600

The Renewable Heat Premium Payment scheme - Phase 2 extension will run from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014, subject to available funding.

Who can apply for the Renewable Heat Premium Payment?

If you live in England, Scotland or Wales and your installation did not receive funding under RHPP Phase 1, the RHPP Social Landlord Scheme nor the RHPP Communities Scheme you are eligible to apply for the Renewable Heat Premium Payment. Your installation must also not have been commissioned for the first time, as detailed on your MCS certificate, before 21 July 2011.

If you live in Northern Ireland, find out more about the Renewable Heat Premium Payment at the DETI website.

How you currently heat your home will depend on which technologies you are able to apply for:

if you have recently removed a mains gas heating system or currently heat your home with mains gas, you are only eligible to apply for solar thermal
if you currently rely on oil, liquid gas, solid fuel or electricity then you could also apply for air-to-water heat pumps, ground-source or water-source heat pumps and biomass boilers.

If you have any further questions about whether you can apply, call our helpline:

in England, Northern Ireland and Wales: 0300 123 1234
in Scotland: 0800 512 012.

What do you have to do before applying?

It is important to understand the full eligibility criteria before applying

The property must be owned by you and continue to be owned by you for the duration of the metering and survey requirements or if you are a tenant you must be purchasing the system yourself and have permission from the owner of the property;
If the property is a new build, then you must retain ownership of the property either as the occupier or as the Private Landlord. Please note applications from installers, builder/developers or householders in relation to “off-plan” developments, are not eligible for support under this scheme. Similarly, installations where the renewable heating system was installed prior to the first occupation of the property are also ineligible for the scheme
The property must have loft insulation to 250mm and cavity wall insulation (where practical);
You must have undertaken a Green Deal Assessment before submitting a claim to EST for payment of your voucher;
You should have all necessary planning and environmental permissions in place;
The product and installer you go with must be certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) or Solar Keymark (or equivalent);
Read the Renewable Heat Premium Payment scheme FAQ.

As the applicant it is your responsibility to ensure that all information supplied at application and claim stage is accurate and complete. Any information that you provided to the Energy Saving Trust that is subsequently found to be untrue, inaccurate or incomplete may affect your ability to claim your rebate. Accordingly, applications should not be submitted by your installer.

If you have any further questions, please email these to RHPremium@est.org.uk

Metering and surveys

As part of the RHPP scheme, all applicants will be asked to submit information about how the technology you have installed is performing in its environment via online surveys. This is to support the monitoring programme and allow the Government to learn as much as possible about renewable technologies. In addition, metering equipment will be fitted to some heat pump installations. The metering equipment provides live data to the Department of Energy and Climate Change to enable them to evaluate the performance of heat pumps. This is ground-breaking research. The results will be used to inform heat pump technology developments and future government policy. The Energy Saving Trust has commissioned the Building Research Establishment (BRE) to coordinate the monitoring programme.

For heat pump installations, all householders will receive 80% of their voucher value when a valid claim is submitted, together with a signed checklist from the installer confirming whether or not the installation can be fitted with a meter. Householders will receive the final 20% following a visit from the metering team to check that the installation is really ‘meter ready’ and install a set of equipment, or if their installer has been trained to install monitoring equipment and installs it on EST’s behalf. If a householder has indicated that they are not meter ready, they will receive the final 20% of the grant at the end of the scheme.

Download your own copy of the installer checklist.

It is a condition of the grant that you participate fully with the survey and metering programmes. Refusal to do so will result in your grant being withdrawn or reclaimed.
A number of MCS installers have attended training events organised by BRE on the technical metering requirements of the RHPP2 scheme and have signed sub-contracts with BRE which enable them to install monitoring equipment at appropriate sites under the scheme. These firms are listed below:

A.P. Chant Building Services
Aaron Services Ltd
ACS Renewable Solutions Ltd
Alex Murray Construction Ltd
AOS Solar Energy
Baystar Energy Efficient Systems
Black Isle Renewables Ltd
Blue Flame (Cornwall) Limited
British Gas Trading t/a Cool Planet
Correct Contract Services Ltd (CCS)
Dalliam Ltd
Ecoliving
Ecotec Services Ltd
Egeenergy
EON UK PLC / WorldHeat&Power
Finn Geotherm UK Ltd
Gas World
Glevum Heating
Global Energy Systems & Technology Ltd t/a Global
Ground Heat Installations Ltd
Heacol Ltd
Husky Heat Pumps
Ice Energy Heat Pumps Limited
ISO Energy Ltd
Lakehouse/KT Heating
Mark Group
Neil Shacklock Plumbing & Heating Contractors Limited
PA Carruthers Ltd
Paynes Heating and Plumbing Services Ltd
Redmond Group (Yorkshire) Ltd
Renewable Solutions UK
Renuvo Limited
RES Devon Ltd
Source Energy Ltd
SSE Home Services Ltd
Thermal Earth Ltd
TSG Building Services plc
Verten Limited
WDS Green Energy Ltd

Preparation checklist

Check the technology is suitable for your home. Try our Renewable Selector which will identify the most suitable technologies for your home
Ensure you have all the basic energy efficiency measures installed in your home (cavity and loft insulation)
Arrange to have a Green Deal Assessment. For more help and advice call our advice line (in England, Northern Ireland and Wales: 0300 123 1234; in Scotland: 0800 512 012) or visit our Green Deal web pages
Investigate all the various renewable technologies on offer and call our advice line for more advice and information (in England, Northern Ireland and Wales: 0300 123 1234; in Scotland: 0800 512 012)
If your installation address is in Scotland you may be eligible for an interest free loan of up to £10,000 towards your installation. You can find more information on the Home Renewable Loan scheme
Try getting a minimum of three quotes from MCS certified installers or Solar Keymark (or equivalent)
Check Planning Permission requirements. In the case of Air Source Heat Pumps, you must ensure that you obtain either;
•    Evidence of planning consent being granted, or Lawful Development Certificate (or equivalent) showing that planning consent is not required, or alternatively;
•    In England and Wales
o    Evidence of compliance with the PDR process which will be a copy of Table 2 comprising fully completed pages 15, 16 and 17 of your MCS020 document, provided by the contracting MCS installer, demonstrating that the final result is lower than 42 db(A).
•    In Scotland
o    Evidence of compliance with the PDR process, provided by the contracting MCS installer, including that the minimum distance between each heat pump is 100m

Other considerations

No vouchers applied for under the Phase 2 Extension (from 1st April 2013), will be valid beyond 31 March 2014, but the expiry date on your voucher may be earlier than this.
Please note the offer is cash limiting: once the budget for the scheme is reached we will no longer be able to accept applications.

How to apply

Renewable Heat Premium Payment – Phase 1

How many vouchers were issued through Phase 1 of the scheme?