Incentives for solar heating panels
A feed-in tariff incentive for solar heating panels has been announced. The Renewable Heat Incentive for solar heating is now available. Announced this week by Greg Barker of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. This is similar to an already existing PV export tariff for photovoltaic solar panels.
A payment tariff of 19.2p per kWh for heated solar output for seven-years has been confirmed.
This incentive is available to homeowners installing solar heating panels including evacuated tubes. These solar technologies produce heat for water tanks, central heating, and swimming pools. A generous rate-of-return gives the UK a unique place in the world. This is the first of its type and will be watched closely by the rest of the world.
Solar pioneers are fortunate to get this opportunity.
This scheme will determine how best to measure outputs and how this would be implemented and rolled-out. Just like its PV solar tariff cousin, the results of your system’s production will be documented.
Your home’s location, orientation, and type of technology will determine your solar panel’s output. The scheme will be degradable to newer adopters as installation numbers rise, so don’t dilly-dally.
This incentive scheme is designed to give solar heating adopters a ‘leg-up only. Once take-up levels have reached a certain pre-set level, then the rate will go down to newer adopters. Eventually to be removed altogether once industry conditions are met.
As people should expect to be paying over £1,500 per year on energy over the next few years, demand for both solar heating and electricity is expected to rise exponentially. So these incentives around today, I suspect will not be around for long.
The child’s fable of the Three Little Pigs can help us in the 21st-century. It’s now 150 years since that pig first put a brick to mortar, and his modern-day descendants have enjoyed many years of peace and low-cost energy after adding solar heating panels.
The Wolves have all but disappeared from the landscape after failing to blow-the-house-down. The modern-day pigs no-longer fear energy price rises.
The little pigs were content living in their solar-powered homes. Life was good and the threats that once made their ancestors feel vulnerable had all but faded from living memory. The smart pigs succeeded in beating the natural world order.
The smarter pigs can be identified by solar panels on the roof. Clever little piggy.