The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Announcement

EasyMCSLtd · Mar 10, 2011

Hi Guys,

The DECC have just confirmed The Renewable Heat Incentive so thought this would be a good chance for everyone to throw any questions in.

The RHI is going to be available to commercial customers from July 2011 with Domestic users able to access it from October 2012. It appears the reasoning behind this is to allow the DECC to test the water with £15million of commercial jobs before hitting the much larger domestic market ie. they can work out all the kinks. Between July 2011 and October 2012 domestic users will be able to access and RHI Premium Payment which is basically a grant which looks like a half a years worth of The Renewable Heat Incentive and then can go onto the RHI once it comes in, in October 2012.

The RHI is also going to be backdated to installations of MCS Technologies by MCS Accredited Installers back to 15th July 2009.

“This incentive is the first of its kind in the world. It’ll help the UK shift away from fossil fuel, reducing carbon emissions and encouraging innovation, jobs and growth in new advanced technologies.”
(Secretary of State, Chris Huhne)

For further details on the RHI announcement see Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Scheme - Department of Energy and Climate Change

It is now expected that the Renewable Heat market will explode in a similar way to the Renewable Electrical market on the back of the Feed In Tariffs.

If anyone has any questions on MCS Accreditation or eligibility as an Installer to offer the Renewable Heat Incentive please don't hesitate to get in touch.

EasyMCSLtd · Mar 18, 2011

You can give the figures for the up front payments which is £850 for Air Source, £300 for Solar Thermal etc. But short of guessing you can only go off the commercial rates and then estimate how much higher they are going to be.

SimonG · Mar 18, 2011

Been looking at the quality sytems that have to be in place for MCS accreditation.......if it wasn't so serious it would be hilarious. Especially like the internal review where I would hold a regular meeting (at least quarterly) with myself and document said meeting. Thought it was bad enough when your on site talking to yourself, now you have to write down what your talking to yourself about. Definitely aimed at jobs for the boys and no good unless you are a pretty big company. The training and assessments are too expensive, the quality management system you would have to have in place would eat up a tremendous amount of time and money to maintain all to the detriment to the client. I just can't see how as a sole trader a quality management system would benefit or give the client a better job.

Might be an opening for developing a sole trader MCS accreditation kit!

EasyMCSLtd · Mar 19, 2011

Hi SimonG,

We have supported an awful lot of single employee installers through MCS Certification and once you have the procedures in place there is a common set you follow for each customer which shouldn't be too taxing. The quarterly review is to ensure you are operating to the most current standards, your procedures are up to date and you can review the systems you have in place. If you didn't hold the quarterly review then when the inspector came around in 12 months you may have missed any changes that should have been made?

Wag · Oct 24, 2011

Hi Gents, What a commotion. THIS SAYS IT ALL . . . . I was called today by a large installer of solar thermal and ashp's, they asked if I could take on some maintenance work as they had customers with maintenance needs. they dont do repairs and servicing!!! ALL they are interested in is the kill on the install, customer service can go hang. The MCS is registering the wrong people, its gonna be just like the double glazing gold rush of the 1980's all over again, mis-selling, misleading con men running round the country getting little old ladies to sign on the dotted line.
The government will pull the entire scheme within the next 2 years and I doubt that ashp's will ever be included, they are just not efficient enough. Why are so many organisations/quango's involved . . . . . DECC, Energy Saving Trust, Ofgem, MCS, Central government and the EU, IF you really want to get involved with that little lot ... GOOD LUCK!!

eaton · Oct 24, 2011

I'm mcs and I've seen so much attempted mis selling recently its untrue. Today's was ashp on 2 bed bungalow. Asked have they had any other quotes one was 14kw daiken unit. Heat loss for house is 6kw. Also following a lot of ****e solar installs around