This week I got dumped. Our ground source heat contractor emailed to say that, despite a start date 2 weeks away, they were pulling out. My initial reaction was to direct all my anger towards them, accusing them of incompetency, laziness, misselling etc. But then I realised that the real culprit here is a government that makes it so hard to be green.
Our ground source contractor is in a pickle because they’ve overstretched themselves in the run up to a change in renewable subsidies. Currently, the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) (see my post on Heat from the Ground) is paid on the total annual heating and hot water requirement of your house. For our house this amounts of over 60,000 kwhs and on this basis the RHI payments will just cover the cost of installation. The government, however, has now decided that come April they will only pay the RHI on 30,000 kwhs. Like many people, we are now trapped in a scramble to get our ground source system installed and accredited before 1 April to benefit from the higher subsidy. As my husband keeps painfully reminding me, there’s little financial gain to us having ground source heating so why are the government so intent on making it hard for us? Their argument is that they want to spread the subsidy pot across as many households as possible. But encouraging the most energy intensive properties to switch to renewables is the best way to reduce carbon emissions and support emerging technology. Unfortunately, like many things governments do, their decisions are ill-thought and are having the effect of stopping a fledgling industry in its tracks.
In my post-dump pique I decided to dispense with my green conscience, cancel all ground source plans and buy a lovely big new gas boiler. However, then I realised that I’d have to cancel all my plans for solar panels too because without the ground source our house won’t achieve the Band D efficiency rating required to qualify for the solar subsidies. Not wanting to turn my back on all my renewable plans, I’ve had a frantic few days scrabbling around to find a new ground source heat contractor (Iso Energy have stepped in) and am now back in the race to get it all installed on time.
Three cheers to Westminster for making going green just that little bit harder!
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It sounds as though your supplier might have been Ice Energy? I admire your understanding reaction to being let down by them ; we bought our airnsource heat pumps through them in 2010 at great expense and like you, many months of teething problems and settling in. But like you, we ended up with a very positive experience of living with the pumps, which allowed us a much more comfortable and ecologically sound domestic heating system than our previous oil tank. However, we had also hoped for a positive financial impact based on the high price of oil at that time and a more efficient usage. Inspite of the small ish RHI tariff’s quarterly payments our bills became fairly astronomical, and getting them right between the electricity provider and Ice wrangling over who was to blame for our racing meter was painful to say the least. However, worst of all when our 3 year guanatee on the pumps ran out we took out a new 3 year warrantee with Ice at great expense (thousands of pounds) just under a year before they went bust. The receivership put those types of debts at the bottom of the list so we have no hope of ever reclaiming that money. Plus with their proprietary control software getting anyone to support the system has been a nightmare. So I’m afraid we’re not so philosophical about their demise as you have been.. the whole experience has led us to opting for a super efficient gas boiler for our new home, which we are coupling with extensive solar panels and hopefully a Tesla power wall to ensure we can actually use the power we generate. This solution should afford us both a more economical AND a less environmentally impactful system for the long term.
Hi Sophie, good to hear from you. It sounds as if there are plenty of far from reputable renewable energy companies out there – luckily we didn’t encounter Ice Energy. Our experience of GSHP is that the RHI pays for the installation cost but not the increase in running costs from mains gas to electricty to power the pumps. In its defence though, our house is now consistently warm, which it never was when heated by gas. Financially, our ‘green’ conscience is costing us especially this year since gas and electricity prices have moved in opposite directions. I’m interested in your tesla wall and solar array.