Leading heat pump manufacturer, Mitsubishi Electric sees significant potential for the increased use of heat pumps for school heating as a result of the official extension to the Non-Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) announced by the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) at the end of May 2014.
"We know heat pumps are one of the most straightforward renewable technologies to install and that they will provide a constant, comfortable level of heat to a building whilst lowering running costs and reducing carbon emissions,” explains John Kellett, General Manager of the company’s Heating Systems.
“They can also offer heating from 4kW right up to 960kW and work in tandem with existing heating systems, so we will undoubtedly see growth as schools realise that a modern heat pump system will help reduce their monthly bills and cut emissions to help achieve carbon reduction targets,”
Where the RHI helps is in reducing the payback period and guaranteeing that schools receive a regular payment for the next 20 years, which provides long term and sustainable growth in the use of renewable technologies.
Under the incentive scheme schools receive regular payments – which can amount to thousands of pounds, for every kWh of renewable heat they use in their business, if generated by a ground, water or air source heat pump.
Tariffs are available for air source heat pumps at 2.5p/kWh and ground source heat pumps at a Tier 1 rate of 8.7p/kWh and Tier 2 rate of 2.6 p/kWh. Tier 1 is paid for the first 1,314 full-load equivalent hours, and Tier 2 for all remaining output.
Mitsubishi Electric has produced a dedicated website which demonstrates how much a school can receive in RHI payments and how much they will save over gas, oil and LPG http://ecodanselectiontool.heating.mitsubishielectric.co.uk/
