Cash carrot for green heat

A consultation into the Renewable Heat Incentive, published last week by the department for Energy and Climate Change, suggests social landlords investing in low carbon technology could reduce their costs, as well as cutting tenants’ heating bills. This is in addition to the announcements also made last week on feed-in tariffs, which pay homeowners who generate their own electricity.

The RHI will subsidise installation of renewable heating technologies such as ground source heat pumps by paying property owners a tariff on the amount of heat they generate.

DECC pledged ‘to encourage landlords to consider renewable heat alternatives, instead of upgrading or installing new traditional heating systems’.

Christoph Sinn, policy and practice officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: ‘Heat is has crucial implications, especially in terms of fuel poverty. But landlords will probably need funding help to meet the costs of installing.’

Nicholas Doyle, head of sustainable development at Places for People, said the rates offered - a 12 per cent return across the tariff bands - were too low for landlords to be able to borrow cash to install renewable heating devices.

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