Applications to the non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) remained steady in November compared to the previous month but well below the those recorded in the same period last year according to the latest figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
The new statistics show progress up until the end of last month since November 2011 and showed that just 174 full applications were made to the renewables incentive scheme in the last month.
In total, the non-domestic RHI has failed to reach 15,000 applications since it was launched, with just 274 received so far this quarter. The last full three month period in 2015 showed that applications had lagged due to degressions in the feed-in tariff rates affecting demand.
Depending on the level of demand for December, the number of applications could see a surge in the final month of 2015 in anticipation of reduced tariff rates for biomass. A new 5.14p kWh rate will be introduced on 1 January 2015, while rates for air and ground source heat pumps and solar thermal systems are to remain the same.
November applications accounted for 298GWh of heat from 66.3MW of installed capacity, which marks an increase on October’s heat generation and is substantially higher than the 91GWh produced in November 2014.