RHI legislation

From the original legislative framework in the 2008 Energy Act, to the current situation...

The design of the scheme has now been announced

See our Go-Live page. Quite a lot of the details are due to be finalised as the scheme progresses, and we will aim to keep this website up-to-date as further details become available.

There are now quite a number of differences in how the RHI works for household and for non-residential installations.

A bit of history and background

The campaign for renewable tariffs in the UK was led by the renewable industry association, REA and Friends of the Earth. Lots of other organisations also supported it. The Government at first resisted, but soon after the new Department of Energy and Climate Change was created, the new Secretary of State, Ed Miliband, changed the policy. The tariffs were therefore included in the 2008 Energy Act.

The concept of the Renewable Heat Incentive was based on the Feed-In Tariffs for electricity first introduced in Germany in the 1990s. These proved very successful and have made Germany one of Europe’s leading renewable energy markets. By framing the UK tariffs on energy produced rather than the amount fed into the network, they can be applied to heat too. This makes the UK's Renewable Heat Incentive quite revolutionary in being one of the world's first regulatory schemes to promote a broad range of renewable heating technologies.

The Energy Act also provides for tariffs for renewable electricity, called the Feed-in Tariffs, for which we have a separate site: www.fitariffs.co.uk. The Feed-In Tariffs launched in April 2010.

Legislative process and timetable

See this section for all the tortuous twists and turns involved in getting the RHI up and running.