Slowly but surely the RHI is helping fuel biomass uptake, according to Simon Cross, Commercial Director at IXUS Energy.

The RHI – the UK’s flagship incentive scheme for renewable heat technologies such as biomass boilers – is having an encouraging effect according to figures released in October (712MW of renewable heat has been generated so far). As of 30th September 2013 there were 3,274 full applications. That said, as a strong advocate of renewable energy, I’d like to have seen a much greater uptake.

When it comes to green technologies, biomass is benefiting the most from the RHI scheme – more than three quarters of applications and accreditations were for small solid biomass boilers (<200kW). To date, 94%of full applications have been for biomass boilers, which has left the uptake of ground source heat pumps, solar thermal and biomethane virtually unaffected.

This reflects the fact that biomass is the most flexible of the renewable heating technologies and offers a straightforward replacement for fossil fuels in properties that just wouldn’t be suitable for some other technologies. Many of these biomass installations are heating multiple properties via district heating schemes – again an application biomass is particularly well suited to.

As expected, the majority of RHI applicants are located in regions with large rural areas such as the South West (20%) and Scotland (18%); however, the North East, which also has significant rural areas, accounts for only 4% of accredited installations, second only to London (1%). The industry and Government need to build awareness in all rural areas to ensure the message is getting across to landowners and businesses.

Interestingly, the report states one of the main reasons an application may be rejected or excluded is that the applicant actually qualifies for the domestic RHI. This highlights the need for the domestic RHI – there is a market out there ready and waiting for next Spring when this comes into effect and homeowners can then follow in the footsteps of the non-domestic sector.