Comments

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Happy RHI
By David
The other day I came across a couple renovating a farmhouse. They converted an outbuilding to a holiday let, put in a big wood burner and thermal store and get £3,500 per year (for 20 years, I think) RHI because they export the heat to the holiday let which by the way will probably only be occupied during the warmer months. The house will get heated as well in which the radiators have been up-rated by 20% burning more fuel. Meanwhile, I have been doing my own farmhouse refurb, but stuffed it full of insulation - somewhere in the region of 5K's worth at least - with my own much smaller wood burning stove, thermal store, MVHR system, UFH, and solar gain heating the thermal mass. Hopefully, I will get close to a passive house and should end up not burning anywhere near the amount of fuel that the couple I came across will. However I get no help for doing the logical thing of just reducing my energy consumption. This RHI is a laudable idea, but surely it should bias towards energy conservation rather than rewarding the consumption of carbon neutral fuels. Just because it is carbon neutral does not mean we should encourage its consumption by massive RHI payments.

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