£300 per solar heating installation subsidy, RHPP, has been extended to 2013.

Perilously near to its expected close date of 1 April, the UK government’s department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has announced that it is extending its undersubscribed Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) scheme.

It is the same old thing with the same subsidy of £300 for solar water heating systems, which are eligible nationwide, unlike all the other eligible renewable heat technologies, which are constrained to properties off the gas grid (Ie about 20% of UK homes.)

As a general overview, the RHPP will be extended, with a new larger budget of £25million:

• £10m for a new social landlords’ competition
• £8m for a new communities competition
• £7m for an extension of the existing domestic scheme.

Grant levels for individual households remain unchanged. Heat pumps will receive 80% of their payment upon completion and the remaining 20% when they are ‘meter ready’.

The £7m household voucher scheme  will also include costs to cover technical monitoring and evaluation. Pre-registration for the household voucher scheme will begin on 2nd April, with applications open on 1st May. Vouchers will be worth the same as before and will cover the same technologies as the existing scheme

• Ground Source Heat Pump – £1250 grant (for homes without mains gas heating)
• Biomass boiler – £950 grant (for homes without mains gas heating)
• Air source heat pump – £850 grant (for homes without mains gas heating);
• Solar thermal hot water panels – £300 grant (available to all households regardless of the type of heating system used.

The good news is that there is a substantial increase in the budget for the wider RHPP scheme, to £25M, although only £4.8m of vouchers have been allocated to individual households so far, and it remains to be seen how many of those vouchers will actually be redeemed.

Potential new applicants can pre-register with the Energy Savings Trust from Monday 2 April.

Here are the RHPP details at DECC.

Also announced are further details on the domestic Renewable Heat incentive. There is yet another extremely disappointing implementation delay, this time to summer 2013.

Barry Johnston. MD of solar Twin Ltd commented: “It may sound churlish when I should perhaps be brimming with gratitude, but the policy wonks at DECC are clueless about how business work. They keep industry waiting, giving them no idea of a future market for renewable heat. Then with a mere five days notice they continue a subsidy scheme at the very same level which caused it to be appallingly undersubscribed in the past. On top of this they delay, yet again the start date of the RHI. The wonks at DECC are fiddling while the planet burns.”