Proposed changes to RHI Schemes resurrected

The May General Election prevented proposed changes to the RHI scheme originally put forward in December 2016 from receiving royal ascent and coming in to law.  The proposals have now been revised and new regulations were laid before Parliament on 30 August 2017 and, subject to approval, will come into effect on 20 September 2017.

The key changes to the schemes are as follows: –

Domestic RHI Scheme

• Increased tariffs for biomass, air and ground source heat pumps. See table 
• Introduction of heat demand limits for heat pump and biomass. See table 
• Future proposals to make metering for performance to be introduced later in 2017/18

Non Domestic RHI Scheme

• A single tariff to be applicable for all sizes of biomass boiler. See table
• Tier thresholds to be increased from 15% to 35%. See table

Both Schemes

• The extension of expenditure and growth thresholds for the calculation of degression for both schemes for 31^st October 2017, 31^st January 2018, 30^th April 2018 and any date after 30^th July 2018, in anticipation of the thresholds being extended out to 2020/21 in other amendments to follow later this year.

For the domestic scheme, the changes are particularly good news for smaller properties with significant increases in the tariffs for biomass and air source heat pumps where the new heat demand limits are not exceeded.