Get paid to heat your house !
From April 2011, the British government are going to pay you a cashback for converting to low carbon fuel. Basically they will give you 9 pence for every kWh of energy produced by the Green Dragon used to heat your home, for 15 years and linked to inflation !
At the moment there is not much detail about the scheme. As more information becomes available we will update our website.
Please note that this scheme is for Great Britain only - England, Wales, Scotland and Cornwall only. It does not apply to Northern Ireland.
It does not apply to open fires or wood burning stoves, the government states "These present practical difficulties as it is extremely difficult to monitor how much they are used (they are usually a secondary source of heat the use of which will be optional), and to what extent they are used with renewable fuel rather than, for instance, coal. The administrative cost of including these appliances in the RHI in a fair way would likely be very high."
However as our product is a biomass boiler it does qualify.
You will be expected to install at least 125mm loft insulation and have cavity wall insulation, where applicable. Cavity wall insulation is not possible with solid stone walls obviously.
Your property will be assessed for its "heat load", to work out how many kWh it takes to heat your home. This heat load muliplied by 0.09 pence will be the amount paid back to the user, paid annually.
The government have set ambitious targets for lowering the use of carbon fuel in the UK, and this new initiative appears to be a very sensible step to persuade the public to help them achieve their targets, as well as allowing the energy consumer to reduce their carbon footprint as well as their fuel bill.
All the major political parties support this scheme. It is doubtful if any new government can scrap this scheme, all the mainstream parties are commited to reducing the countries CO2 emissions, and scrapping the scheme would be political suicide.
So how much could you save with this scheme by burning firewood in our Green Dragon boiler ?
Properly seasoned and dried hardwood should give 3.77kWh per kilogram weight , so for each kilogram burnt the government will give you 33.93 pence. If your firewood costs you 15 pence per kilogram you will get your firewood paid for and earn an additional 18.9 pence for every kilogram of wood burnt !
As a cubic metre of well dried hardwood contains about 400KG of wood and costs you £60 to buy, the government will give you £135 !!!
So your heating is free and you get £75 for each cubic metre of firewood burnt to reduce the payback time of your initial investment. So if you get through 20 cubic metres of wood a year, which would cost £1200 at the example price of 15 pence per KG. Under the RHI scheme you will get back £2714.40 in a year.
That is all your wood free and £1514.40 a year cash in the bank !
And of course no big heating oil or heating gas bills, which is more money in the bank.
With this scheme it is entirely feasible to have a payback period of less than three years. Then you have another 12 years of RHI cashback using a biomass boiler that will last 20 years and more.
And if you have trees already, or have plant quick growing firewood crops like hazel, willow and ash its even better, you can get £2714.40 cashback a year !
What a great incentive to go Green, with a Green Dragon of course !
Please note this that scheme has been proposed for Great Britain only and is still being worked on so may change before it is finally implemented.
© 2010 Eco Celtique Ltd