RENEWABLE HEAT INCENTIVE - ELIGIBILITY

There are a number of eligibility criteria that applicants installing heat pumps must meet in order to receive support under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).

ELIGIBLE USES OF HEAT

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) will support heat pump systems providing useful heat production for space, water and process heating where the heat is used in fully enclosed structures.

The heat must be supplied to meet an economically justifiable heating requirement i.e. a heat load that would otherwise be met by an alternative form of heating e.g. a gas boiler. The heat load should be an existing or new heating requirement and not created artificially, purely to claim the RHI.

ELIGIBLE TECHNOLOGIES

• Solar thermal (upto 200kW)
• On-site biogas (upto 200kW)
• Injection of biomethane into the grid (upto 200kW)
• Energy from waste
• Solid and gaseous biomass
• Ground source heat pumps
• water source heat pumps
• Deep geothermal

Exclusions

The RHI will not initially support air source heat pumps. The cooling function of heat pumps will not eligible for the RHI. Therefore, only the metered heat generated using heat pumps will be eligible for the RHI.

Exhaust air heat will also not be eligible for the RHI

Notes

An RHI installation can be comprised of one or multiple units of the same heating technology connected to a common heating system. Where multiple units of the same technology are installed within a 12 month period, their combined capacity will be considered for the purpose of the level of tariffs they receive. Different renewable technologies on a single site will be treated as separate installations in order to allow for differentiation between tariffs and certain eligibility criteria.

However where additional capacity is completed and first commissioned more than 12 months after the previous installation, the first part of the installation will continue to be treated as before. The additional capacity will be rewarded on the basis of the total capacity of the installation and will receive the current tariff level.

For the purposes of the RHI, the installation capacity will be the total installed peak heat output of the installation