A Midlands renewable energy company is seeing a hike in sales, reflecting national figures which revealed more than 800 MW of renewable heat has been installed in the last two years.
Government figures released at the end of 2013 show biomass boilers, such as the wood pellet boilers installed by Shrewsbury-based 7 Energy, accounted for 92 per cent of all new capacity in the UK.
The rate of growth reflects a hike in demand for green heat systems as businesses look to take advantage of Government schemes including the Renewable Heat Incentive, according to 7 Energy managing director Martin Dowley.
He said: “We have seen our Wood Pellet Boiler sales increase by133 per cent in 2013 compared to 2012, and the majority of these have been installations at commercial properties. The figures unveiled by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) revealed the extent to which the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) has helped to boost the market for green heat technologies since the scheme’s launch two years ago.
“Around 712MW of renewable heat has been installed by businesses under the non-domestic RHI and a further 106MW of capacity has been installed under the Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) household voucher scheme,
“We are expecting this trend in rising sales to accelerate in 2014, when the full domestic RHI scheme is launched next year which, like the existing business RHI, will provide households with payments based on the amount of renewable heat they generate.”
The Government wants to see 750,000 renewable heat installations completed by 2020 as a result of the RHI.
Mr Dowley said: “We are gearing up for a further increase in demand. We have had an extremely successful 2013 but 2014 could see a real upsurge in the number of domestic installations.
“Under the scheme, households installing biomass boilers will earn 12.2p/kWh and they can still take advantage of the Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP), which is cash off the capital cost of a boiler.
The domestic RHI is due to be introduced in Spring 2014, with the RHPP currently extended until March 2014.
