The Renewable Heat Premium Payment scheme is a government scheme that gives money to householders to help them buy renewable heating technologies – solar thermal panels, heat pumps and biomass boilers. As from next year, the Renewable Heat Incentive will expand to cover the domestic sector and the Green Deal will come into force, so this is a short-term scheme making one-off payments.

Who can apply?

For solar thermal products, any householder in England, Scotland and Wales can apply.

For ground to water, air to water or water to water heat pumps, and for biomass boilers, householders without gas central heating in England, Scotland and Wales can apply (in other words those who are not connected to the gas grid and currently rely on fuels such as oil, liquid gas, solid fuel or electricity for their heating). All successful applicants will have to meet certain simple conditions.

What are the conditions?

Your house must be your main home and it must have basic energy efficiency measures in place. This means you will need to confirm you have loft insulation to 250mm and cavity wall insulation, where these measures are practical. The renewable heat product you will be installing must be listed under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme, and be installed by someone registered under the scheme.

Once the equipment is up and running, you will be asked to fill in two customer surveys. You may be chosen at random to have extra meters attached to your installation (free of charge). It is a condition of the scheme that you are happy to have these meters installed.