We have been waiting some time but the government has finally agreed on how much they will give you to help reduce the upfront cost of installing eligible renewable heat technologies, installed between 21 July 2011 and 31 March 2012.

£15 million has been put aside for the grants and a new phone line and microsite has been launched dedicated to giving you information about it.

The £860 million Renewable Heat Incentive, announced today by the government, is good news for householders and businesses that choose to switch from traditional heating to technologies such as solar thermal panels, ground source heat pumps, and wood chip burners. For the first time ever, householders, businesses and schools will be able to make money from heating their properties. This makes fitting renewable energy to your property not only much more attractive, but very affordable.

Please see below for the latest news from DECC regarding the Renewable Heat Incentive. At this stage, DECC has taken all the decisions that are within its power. The documents are now awaiting approval by other departments. The main sticking point with the Renewable Heating Incentive update is air quality associated with biomass boilers, where DECC and Defra have been unable to reach agreement. There are also still discussions with Treasury, although these are on relatively minor ‘in-year’ accounting details.

Good news on the Feed-in Tariff as rumours of an early review of the Feed-in Tariff levels were unfounded. No early review has been scheduled at this stage. DECC stated that the Feed-in Tariff will be "re-focused on the most cost-effective technologies" in 2014-15, in line with the original timetable for review, unless "higher than expected deployment requires an early review".

Renewable Heat Incentive

After much speculation the Chancellor has announced today that no cuts will be made to the Feed in Tariff, that the Renewable Heat Incentive is to be introduced and that one billion pounds is to be set aside for the Green Investment Bank. This is fantastic news.

Conservative party conference speech by former shadow chancellor welcomed as a sign that key government figures are still pushing the low-carbon agenda

The battle at the top of the Conservative party over cuts to its environmental policies broke out in public today when a senior conservative declared that threatened green measures had to be pursued together because they formed a "coherent whole".

The Department of Energy and Climate Change have just released their annual energy statement which contains positive signs that the government are still committed to the RHI.

Below is an extract from this report:

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has today (July 27) published the first Annual Energy Statement which outlines 32 actions to accelerate the transformation of the energy system to 2050, including plans to produce a renewable delivery plan and to exploit waste resources for energy generation.

The uptake of renewable heat technologies has really dropped off with the renewable heat incentive (RHI) still looming, but no confirmation of the final tariffs or criteria, and the recent removal of the LCBP grants.

No doubt things will pick up once the RHI details have been announced there. However, based on the response to the feed-in tariff this has the potential to be very dangerous.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change today published plans for a scheme to incentivise renewable heat generation at all scales. The Renewable heat incentive scheme (RHI) will be a world first.

The RHI will come into effect in April 2011 and guarantee payments for those who install technologies such as ground source heat pumps, solar thermal hot water systems, biomass boilers and air source heat pumps.