Switching to Biomass for your home heating can earn you £000s each year
If you live in the rural areas around Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling, you should consider switching to biomass now to take advantage of Scotland?s generous renewable energy loans and RHI payouts.
A combination of bill savings and RHI payments will cover the cost of your Biomass Boiler over 7 years, after which you continue to enjoy cheaper bills and protection from future energy price hikes.
Various incentives are available through the Energy Saving Trust (Scotland) and may include a Premium Payment grant of £2000 or an interest free homeowner loan towards the cost of your installation.
Off-mains gas grid homes will benefit most from biomass
The Domestic RHI is targeted mainly at off-gas grid homes, as these are the properties that will benefit most from renewable energy such as biomass or heat pumps.
In Scotland, an estimated 18,000 homes are on LPG and 135,000 homes use heating oil as their main heating fuel. Homeowners can earn around £5,500 every year for 7 years by switching from heating oil to renewable energy.
The annual savings in fuel amount to nearly £1000, and continue for the life of your biomass boiler, which could be up to 25 years.
If you?d like to know more about how biomass boilers work and whether it?s a good fit for your property, call Joe on 01506 632810 or email lothian@energymyway.co.uk
Reduced costs and reduced Carbon Footprint
Biomass boiler owners in Scotland can make further savings on fuel as wood pellets ? the biofuel that feeds biomass boilers ? are produced in Scotland.
Use of a competitively priced, local resource will help to provide greater security of fuel supply and reduce homeowners? dependence on the price of imported fossil fuels. And with less far to travel, the carbon footprint ? as well as the price ? of your wood pellets is lower.
Scotland?s energy minister Fergus Ewing, hopes that the increase in Scotland biofuel production will create more jobs in the forestry and renewables sector, as well as turning a waste product from forestry into a cash crop.
Prices of biomass boilers vary in line with their quality. So we?ve compiled a buyer?s guide to comparing biomass boilers, and listed our recommended domestic size boilers.
Tackling fuel poverty in Scotland
34 per cent of Scottish oil consumers with incomes in the £26k?36.4k band live in fuel poverty, due to the high cost of heating oil and the nature of their homes (larger, detatched homes with solid walls etc).
Source: Off-Gas Consumers , by William Baker, September 2011, Consumer Focus
Defined as homeowners who pay more than 10% of their annual income on fuel, fuel poverty is increasing in Scotland, and is only set to rise if the Big 6 energy suppliers continue to put prices up.
To tide consumers over until the Domestic RHI scheme begins in Spring 2014, Fergus Ewing, Scotland?s energy minister is providing a £3million funding boost to ensure households, especially those in fuel poverty, are able to increase their income through renewable technologies.
Homeowners can borrow up to £10,000, interest-free, to help with the cost of installing solar panels, biomass boilers and other technologies. Renewable-heat premium payment vouchers to help householders buy green heating technologies are also available.
The RHI in Scotland ? and why you should switch NOW
Under the same terms as for the rest of the UK, Scottish homeowners and landlords will be eligible for Government payouts for using renewable heat technologies, such as biomass, solar thermal, and heat pumps.
Ofgem will provide the financial support which will be paid at a set rate per unit of renewable heat produced (kilowatt hour or kWh), for seven years, to the owner of the heating system.
This means that if you install a biomass boiler, you will receive 12.2p per kWh of heat it produces, for 7 years.
To help improve performance of renewable heating systems, there will be an extra incentive for applicants who install metering and monitoring service packages, of £200 per year for biomass boilers.
However, to control the costs of the scheme, DECC intend to introduce a system of digression, whereby tariffs are reduced over time for new RHI applications. If you install a biomass now, your tariff rate is secure, and will not be reduced due to cost control measures.
EnergyMyWay is MCS Accredited; so all our installations are eligible for the RHI, but all applicants are required to complete a Green Deal Assessment (GDA) before applying and to ensure they meet minimum energy efficiency requirements of loft and cavity insulation.