An umbrella supplier and a group of holiday cottages in East Yorkshire have made history by becoming the first in the UK to get the Government's Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
Booth Brothers, an umbrella and walking stick supplier from in Sheffield, operates from offices, housed in an 18th Century former corn mill in Penistone and will be kept warm through an underfloor heating system powered by a renewable energy heat pump.

The second installation to be accredited is at a set of holiday cottages in East Yorkshire. A ground source heat pump will provide heat and hot water to five holiday lets at Broadgate Farm Cottages in Beverley.

The £860m Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) was launched last year to make it more financially attractive for industry and businesses to install low carbon heating systems like heat pumps, biomass boilers or solar thermal panels.

The RHI is expected to increase the number of installations in industry, the commercial and public sector by seven times to around 126,000 and support the thousands of existing jobs in the heating sector.

Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said: 'It's fantastic news that the Renewable Heat Incentive has received its first two successful applicants, and this is just the start.

'Renewable heat is a largely untapped resource and an important new green industry of the future. It'll help the UK shift away from fossil fuel, reducing carbon emissions and encouraging innovation, jobs and growth in new advanced technologies.'

Booth Brothers chief executive Charles Booth said: 'Being amongst the first installations to be accredited under the Renewable Heat Incentive is very satisfying for Booth Brothers in terms of developing our strategic target of carbon neutral for our Bullhouse Mill site and eco-umbrella factory. Last year our Old Corn Mill offices were commended for their eco rating and we generate electricity from two wind turbines, solar panels and hydro generation so making the heat we use low carbon was naturally the next step.'

Elaine Robinson, the owner of Broadgate Farm Cottages, said: 'We don't have mains gas and the price of oil and LPG is very expensive so when we decided to develop the holiday cottages a ground source heat pump was the most economically attractive in the long term, especially with the Renewable Heat Incentive. This is the first of our applications to be approved.'

The Booth Brothers installation supplies offices which are heated by underfloor heating using water heated by the 24kW water source heat pump accredited under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), and with an efficiency above that required by the RHI. It has been accredited under the 'small commercial heat pumps' tariff of 4.5p / kiloWatt-hour (kWh) and receive quarterly payments for a 20 year period.

The Broadgate Farm Cottages has installed a 4.3kW ground source heat pump accredited under the MCS with an efficiency above that required by the RHI. It supplies space heating and hot water. The heat output is measured by an appropriate heat meter. It has also been accredited under the 'small commercial heat pumps' tariff of 4.5p / kWh and receive quarterly payments for 20 years.