The Government has launched a £320m scheme to help accelerate the adoption of low-carbon heat technologies across the UK’s public, private and domestic sectors, on the same week that further tweaks to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) were criticised. Called the Heat Networks Investment Project (HNIP) was announced in April and officially launched on Tuesday (16 October). The scheme will offer grants and loans to businesses, hospitals, schools and local authorities with a heat network of two or more buildings. The scheme is being operated by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which claims that switching from an individual gas boiler to a heat network system could reduce heating bills for those living in flats by 30%. BEIS additionally claims that a switch to heat networks could “significantly” reduce the UK’s carbon emissions, if the transition is carried out at scale. Specifically, the department has predicted that heat networks will meet up to 17% of the national heat demand for homes and almost one-quarter (24%) of the heat demand for industrial and public sector buildings by 2050.
Edie 17th Oct 2018 read more »