New Future for Liquid Heating Fuels
Plans to offer an incentive to householders who use a new bio-liquid heating fuel are the right way to move consumers to a renewable heating alternative says the Oil Firing Technical Association (OFTEC).
The long awaited consultation paper on the proposed Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) has finally been issued by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), and includes the option of using blends of bio-liquids to heat buildings.
Under the proposed RHI, homes and other buildings using renewable heat technologies will qualify for regular incentive payments from OFGEM for up to 20 years after installation. For some technologies payments could be as high as £1,400 per annum for an averaged sized house.
OFTEC has been working in partnership with ICOM and the University of East Anglia to develop a new bio-fuel which can be used in existing oil boilers with minor modifications. The bio-fuels project has helped provide a body of evidence to DECC to show that new bio-heating fuels can easily deliver green house gas savings in the heating sector at a lower cost than other technologies.
Commenting on the announcement about the RHI, Jeremy Hawksley, OFTEC Director General said “47% of our CO2 emissions in the UK and Ireland come from buildings, so
heating is a key area when it comes to reducing our carbon footprint. For homes heated by oil, they will be able to switch to biofuel at very low cost, and we hope the fuel will be available later this year. Under the RHI, this will enable householders to claim annual payments towards the cost of their fuel from April. In the UK there are nearly 1.4 million
homes heated by oil and we estimate that 90% of these, and many new homes off the mains gas grid, will be using the new fuel by 2020.”