RHI extended to 2022 while gas rates rise!

Rishi Sunak announced the first budget of Boris Johnson’s new Government today, complete with announcements for low carbon heating. A series of commitments were made to deliver green growth and reduce emissions from homes and buildings as part of transition away from fossil fuel heating to net-zero.
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• Current Renewable Heat Incentive to be extended until 31st March 2022 for heat pumps, biomass and solar thermal.
• New Low Carbon Support Scheme to follow the RHI in 2022 until 2024, offering £100 million of grant-funding for households and small businesses to install low carbon heating technology, including heat pumps to replace fossil fuel heating.
• Introduction of Tariff Guarantees for non-domestic RHI funding.
• Continuing to remove incentives to choose gas over electricity, the Government is raising the rate on gas under the Climate Change Levy (CCL) whilst freezing the rates on electricity.
• New £2.5 billion National Skills Fund to improve the technical skills of adults across the country.

The budget today indicates that heat decarbonisation is a key priority for the UK Government, and starts to address the upfront investment required to encourage the uptake of low carbon heat. The Government’s ambition to phase out high carbon fossil fuels has been reinforced today and the budget takes a step towards the Future Homes Standard due to come into play in 2025. The National Skills Fund is yet to be fleshed out but hopefully will help train and upskill individuals over the course of their lifetimes, all the while helping the low carbon heat sector transition to a green economy.

Source: NIBE

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