- Heat pumps : download course details
- Renewable awareness : download course details
- Solar technologies : download course details
- Unvented cylinders : download course details
- Water regulations : download course details

Course dates can be found on our training page

To book your place call us on 0116 258 1410.

The awards took place at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Central London and was attended by over 1000 heating and ventilation specialist from all areas of the industry.

Image courtesy of H&V News

In order to help increase the rate of meter installation relative to the first scheme, a small change will be made to the voucher payment process. For heat pump installations, all householders will receive 80% of their voucher value when a valid claim is submitted, together with a signed checklist from the installer confirming the installation can be fitted with a meter. Householders will receive the final 20% following a visit from the metering team to check that the installation is really “meter ready” and install a set of equipment, or if their installer has been trained to install monitoring equipment and installs it on EST’s behalf. If a householder has indicated that they are not meter ready, they will receive the final 20% of the grant at the end of the scheme. Installations of biomass boilers and solar thermal panels are not affected.

Further information is available in the attached PDF

To discuss your project please call us on 0116 2581410.

Join us to celebrate a year in our premises!

Come along and meet the team, view the technologies we offer including:

• Solar PV and Thermal
• Heat Pumps
• Biomass Heating
• Natural Light Systems
• Underfloor Heating
• Heating Controls
• Heat Recovery
• Low Surface Temperature Radiators
• Plumbing Systems
• Rainwater Harvesting

We will also be launching our new training academy, so come and take a look around the practical training suites and theory training rooms.

There is also a chance to enter our prize draw to win a Flogas Barbeque.

10am – 4pm, Saturday 31st March 2012.
UFW Limited – The Renewable Energy Centre
Unit V2 | The Ecohub | Winchester Avenue | Blaby | LE8 4GZ

The new money will help the RHPP go further including an £8m competition for communities to apply for grants to encourage community groups to install renewable heating. This will be on top of the existing voucher scheme which will be mainly focused at around 4 million homes in Great Britain which are not heated by mains gas, who have to rely on higher carbon forms of heating which also tend to be more expensive than gas such as heating oil and electric fires. There will also be a £10m competition for social landlords.

Further information is available from the Department of Energy and Climate Change: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_029/pn12_029.aspx

Today Greg Barker announced further plans for the delivery of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) including a time table setting out what we intend to do and when for both the domestic and non-domestic sectors.

Government remains committed to the deployment of renewable heat and we committed to clarify timing on support for the domestic sector in November 2011. We will consult on how we can support renewable heating for households in the longer term in September 2012 and we will set out a firmer timetable for delivering this support at that point and anticipate that this will be from Summer 2013.

The Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) has provided support to the domestic sector since August 2011 due to the later than anticipated household scheme under RHI. A second phase of this scheme, worth £25m (£10m more than the first phase), to provide support for the installation of renewable heat technologies in the household sector was also announced. The support will consist of a new voucher scheme for domestic households and a new social landlords’ competition building on the experiences of Phase 1 of the RHPP. Some small but important changes to the voucher scheme to ensure that we learn as much as we can from the installations it supports are also being made. The second phase also includes a new £8m Communities Competition which will help to bring renewable heat to a wider pool of householders. Potential applicants for the voucher scheme will be able to pre-register with the Energy Saving Trust[External link] from Monday 2 April. Further details on eligibility criteria and the competitions will be announced in due course.

To ensure the success of the non-domestic scheme (that launched in November 2011), we will prioritise the delivery of a cost control regime that incorporates lessons from other schemes and meets previous commitments. To do this, we are developing a package of policy options that include modified pre-accreditation, degression and reviews. We will consult on proposals in July 2012, with a view to laying Regulations in November and for the policy to be implemented by the end of the current financial year. This consultation will also include amendments to the existing scheme covering air quality and biomass sustainability issues as outlined in the original RHI Policy document. Cost control measures can only apply going forward, i.e. to new entrants, so installations already receiving the RHI will continue to receive their current tariff (adjusted for RPI) for the full 20 year duration.

In the meantime, we are consulting on arrangements for interim measures to be in place to keep us within the budgetary limits set by the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) and we intend for this to be in place by the summer subject to Parliamentary approval. The consultation closes on 23 April 2012. Full details are available on the The Renewable Heat Incentive: consultation on interim cost controlweb page.

We will also consider extending support to new technologies and we will consult on proposals to do this in September 2012, with a view to ensuring new support will be available from Summer 2013.

(Information courtesy of the DECC)

Further information is available from the Department of Energy and Climate Change:  http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/Renewable_ener/incentive/incentive.aspx

The 60 page brochure gives details of all our products and services available.

Download your copy here

Following phase one of the Feed-in Tariff Scheme (FiTs) consultation, DECCs Greg Barker has announced what DECC describe as improvement plans for a more sustainable FiTs future.  Due to ongoing legal proceedings the government are unable to confirm rates for solar PV installations with an eligibility date between 12 December 2011 and 3 March 2012.

1. From 3 March 2012 a new tariff scale will come into effect, including a 21p per unit for domestic scale installation.

2. From 1 April 2012 a D rated Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) or above will be required to qualify for the full FiT

3. From 1 April multi-installation tariff rates (which are 80% of the single installation rates) will apply to projects with 25 installations or more

4. A higher Micro-CHP tariff will be introduced to encourage greater uptake

The second phase of the consultation which will close on 3 April 2012 features specific solar PV tariff proposals which are scheduled to come into effect from 1 July 2012.  The new scale is intended be flexible and designed to react to the level of installations. The rates in the table below are based on the installed capacity in March and April reaching: >200MW (Option A), 150-200MW (Option B) or <150MW (Option C):

Please refer to DECC Document  2A for full details of these different installation scenarios.  The closing date for this aspect of the consultation is 3 April 2012.

DECC are also considering an export tariff review, removing index-linking, a mechanism for future regular reductions (“degression”), a payback period of 20 years, and reducing non-community-owned multi-installations to the “stand alone” rate from October 2012.

DECCs 2B Document outlines further proposals which apply to all other renewable energy technologies.  The closing date for this aspect of the consultation is 26 April 2012.

(information courtesy of NAPIT MCS News)

After deliberating since January 13, the Court of Appeal has today found against the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) at a hearing for its appeal against the High Court’s December ruling on UK solar feed-in tariffs. This means the feed-in tariff could now go back to 43.3p/kWh for <4kW systems installed until March 3, 2012, subject to a further appeal to the Supreme Court.

So, what does this mean for the Solar PV industry and its installers? If Court of Appeal finding stands then:

• Solar installations registered between 12 December- 3 March will attract the 43.3p/kWh rate for 25 years
• Installations registered on or after 3 March will also attract 43.3p/kWh, but only until 1 April at which point they will receive 21 p/kWh for the remainder of the 25 years
• All installations from 1 April until the next reduction date will attract 21 p/kWh for 25 years

The Energy and Climate Secretary, Chris Huhne, intends to appeal against today’s decision; he commented:

“The Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court ruling on FiTs albeit on different grounds. We disagree and are seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

“We have already put before Parliament changes to the regulations that will bring a 21p rate into effect from April for solar PV installations from 3 March to help reduce the pressure on the budget and provide as much certainty as we can for consumers and industry.

“We want to maximise the number of installations that are possible within the available budget rather than use available money to pay a higher tariff to half the number of installations. Solar PV can have strong and vibrant future in UK and we want a lasting FiTs scheme to support that future and jobs in the industry.”

Uptake recently rocketed when lower rates were originally announced and it’s now expected that we’ll see a similar reaction. NAPIT members must be careful not to overpromise rates to their customers at a time when DECC are still taking their appeal to a higher level.

NAPIT Director David Cowburn commented:

“It’s important that installers are aware the imminent Supreme Court appeal which still means it’s impossible to promise customers the 43.3p rate as only the lower 21p rate is certain. We are pleased however, that DECC have confirmed that the 21 p rate is not under threat of further reduction if they cannot overturn the Appeal Court finding.”

Source – NAPIT News Bulletin – 25/1/12