It’s encouraging to see the Department of Energy and Climate Change recognising the needs of the social housing sector, but some more support would be useful.
Yesterday the department announced details of how £3 million that has been set aside to encourage social landlords to install renewable heating equipment will be allocated.
Landlords in England, Scotland and Wales can bid for up to £175,000 from the ‘renewable heat premium payment’ budget, which is designed to finance ‘at least’ 17 projects. The money subsidises the installation of certain types of renewable heating equipment – solar hot water panels, biomass boilers, and heat pumps – and is aimed at households that don’t have access to mains gas.
The £3 million is a fifth of the overall budget for the premium payment scheme, so is roughly in line with the proportion of the population in social housing, but it isn’t going to go far. It is also a very small chunk of the £860 million the government promised to spend on renewable heating between 2011 and 2015.
One concern is that the bulk of this cash will be swallowed up by industry and business before any money filters down to housing. Another scheme, the renewable heat incentive, is due to launch this autumn and will offer payments for heat generated from renewable sources, in much the same way as the feed-in tariff does for electricity.
Businesses will get access to the RHI a year before households become eligible, so if it proves as popular as the feed-in tariff a decent chunk of the money could be gone before housing even gets a look in.
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