On 26 March, DECC announced a second phase to the Renewable Heat Premium Payment scheme, which will provide further short term support for installations of renewable heat technologies in the household sector. The scheme, operated by the Energy Saving Trust opened to applications on 1st May 2012.
Phase 1
This phase of the scheme ran until 31st March 2012. Regardless of when customers applied for or received their voucher, and in order to be eligible to receive their grant, all completed claims should have arrived at the address printed on the voucher (Energy Saving Trust, Edinburgh) before midnight on 31st March 2012 in order to be eligible for payment.
As part of the scheme, DECC and EST ran a competition for social housing providers to part-fund projects to install renewable heating. See below for a list of the winners who were awarded funding.
Phase 2
Under the new voucher scheme, homes not heated by mains gas will be able to apply for grants for air-to-water-source and ground and water source heat pumps, biomass boilers and solar thermal. All householders can apply for grants for solar thermal. There are minimum energy efficiency criteria, and householders must agree to complete customer questionnaires, as well as making provision for the installation of a meter to monitor their energy use and performance of their heating system.
Further information on the scheme can be found on the EST website or by calling the Energy Saving Trust on 0800 512012.
The Energy Saving Trust website also has weekly statistics and information on how popular the scheme has been in each region:
Further details on the social landlords scheme will published on these pages shortly