– that is a proxy will be made based on reasonable heating need. Decc came up with the elegant proposal that deeming could be based on given energy efficiency assumptions. In this way, those homes that bother with energy efficiency will be rewarded, while those who don’t will miss out. The industry is all for energy efficiency but it is difficult to see how this could be imposed via the RHI without huge, costly bureaucracy. Being snarled up in bureaucracy while families freeze is never going to be a successful business model.
For the 2 milllion homes off the gas-grid the RHI is particularly interesting. Fuel poverty is highly concentrated in off-grid rural areas and the RHI will greatly broaden the heating options for these homes, and reduce exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices. However, it will be essential to ensure these homes have assistance overcoming upfront capital costs.
Final proposals are due any time now. We are not out of the woods yet, with deep concern about the delays on policy implementation and the damaging effect delay has on particularly the smaller players in the renewable heat sector. The industry urgently needs the RHI to begin in June 2011, its introduction already delayed. And REA continues to lobby for the inclusion of key missing technologies including sustainable liquid biofuels and deep geothermal.
When detailed proposals are published we will be looking closely to ensure that the proposed Tariff rates are set
Hilary Ben, Caroline Lucas, Andy Atkins (Director FoE), Gaynor Hartnell (Director REA), Zac Goldsmith, me and others campaigning last summer.
at commercially viable levels. We know from experience with the Feed-In Tariffs, if the rates aren’t strong enough nothing happens – that’s not a situation we can afford on renewable heat given the huge growth rates needed. We also need to resolve bizarre contradictions with other policy areas like the treatment of renewables under the Carbon Reduction Commitment which could derail investment by the commercial sector.
Of course we hope the Coalition Government will take a much more proactive approach to advancing renewable energy going forward. While this campaign was ultimately successful, it was not a campaign that should have had to have been fought, so obvious was the need for strong policy support in the UK for local renewable heat and power technologies. While heat now has an ambitious policy approach which we applaud, the very low ambitions on local renewable power which the Conservatives and LibDems criticised in opposition remain, and indeed were subject to a 10% budget cut under the CSR. Unfortunately therefore, it seems it won’t be long before we will need to regroup and campaign again.
The technologies expected to be supported by the RHI are; Ground Source Heat Pumps; Air Source Heat Pumps; Solar Thermal; Biomass Boilers (domestic to large-scale with a wide range of fuels); Green Gas and Energy-from- Waste CHP. REA is lobbying for the inclusion of Deep Geothermal.
|48| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
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