Heating and hot water for free

Adrian Wright from Happy Energy explains what companies can do to reduce their energy bills from insulation to low energy lighting or switching to a cheaper supplier.

There are a myriad of ways that companies can reduce their energy bills; insulation, low energy lighting or even just be switching to a cheaper supplier.

But did you know that at the moment the Government will pay you to heat your company’s premises or facilities?

In fact, if you currently spend around £17,000 a year on heating and hot water, over the next 20 years you could receive payments of over half a million pounds for the heat you use.Through the Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive or RHI for short, companies of all sizes are being encouraged to convert their heating and hot water systems to renewable energy such as biomass, heat pumps and solar thermal. In return you will receive quarterly index linked payments based on the amount of metered heat that you use. By far the most generous payments are made for biomass, where fully automated, highly efficient wood chip and wood pellet boilers will earn you 7.6 pence index linked for 20 years for each kWh of heat you use, against a fuel cost of only 4.4 pence, making your RHI payments.

If you currently heat your property with oil, electric or bulk LPG, you will also cut your heating costs by at least 30% by switching to a biomass boiler.

The cost of a biomass boiler will vary depending on how much heat you need to generate. A small company with heating bills of around £5,000 a year could pay around £20,000 for the biomass boiler and a company spending £15,000 or more a year on current heating bills would need to invest between £100,000 and £150,000. If you don’t have the investment available and don’t want to borrow it, there are a number of companies, Happy Energy included, now offering to install a biomass boiler and service and maintain it for 20 years for free in return for taking the RHI payments.

This free boiler option is perfect for hotels, care homes, schools, holiday let complexes, leisure centres or other companies who spend over £15,000 a year on heating and hot water, especially those without access to mains gas.

Just like the solar Feed-in Tariff, as soon as something gets popular the Government starts to cut the rates.

The RHI is no different and the payments are likely to be reduced every three months from now on, so the sooner you switch to biomass, the sooner you will lock in at the current high rates.

Read more: Wood Pellet Boilers, Wood Chips Boilers, Biomass Boilers