Commercial Grant Aid
Renewable Heat Deployment Programme (ReHeat)
Launched in March 2007, the Renewable Heat (ReHeat) Deployment Programme provides assistance for the deployment of renewable heating systems in industrial, commercial, public and community premises in Ireland. The programme is administered by Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) and is an expansion of the previous Bioheat Boiler Deployment Programme which supported woodchip or pellet boilers only.
Background to the ReHeat Programme
In the 2006 Budget presented to the Dail in December 2005, the Minister of Finance announced the allocation of €65 million over the period 2006 to 2010 to "launch several innovative grant schemes relating to biofuels, combined heat and power, biomass commercial heaters and domestic renewable heat grants". An indicative allocation of €22M was made for a Bioheat Boiler Deployment Programme to run in the 2006 to 2010 time frame. In the 2007 Budget presented to the Dail in December 2006, the Minister of Finance announced the allocation of an additional €4 million to expand the Bioheat Boiler Deployment Programme to include Solar Thermal Systems and Heat Pumps.
Programme Supports
Under the ReHeat Deployment programme, grants are available for the deployment of qualifying renewable heating systems in the following categories.
- boilers fuelled by wood chips and/or wood pellets,
- solar thermal systems
- heat pumps
Installations can be in the commercial, industrial, services and public sectors and also includes community organisations and Energy Supply Companies (ESCOs), in Ireland.
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Deployment Programme
In the 2006 Budget presented to the Dail in December 2005, the Minister of Finance announced the allocation of €65 million over the period 2006 to 2010 to "launch several innovative grant schemes relating to biofuels, combined heat and power, biomass commercial heaters and domestic renewable heat grants". An indicative allocation of €11M was made for a CHP programme to run in the 2006 to 2010 time frame. The new SEI CHP Deployment Programme will provide grant support to assist the deployment of small-scale (<1MWe) fossil fired CHP and biomass (anaerobic digestion (AD) and wood residue) CHP systems. It supersedes the "Combined Heat and Power RD&D" Programme.
At present the Programme includes feasibility studies, to assist investigation into the application of CHP across all size ranges and technologies and investment grant support for small-scale fossil fired CHP with a capacity = 50kWe and < 1MWe.
Funding for the Low Carbon Homes Programme
The Low Carbon Homes programmes is the successor to the successful House of Tomorrow Programme. It aims to significantly reduce the energy usage and associated CO2 emissions. The programme will explore the technical solutions that have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions from energy use in a typical new home by at least 70% relative to a "reference dwelling" built to baseline Building Regulations 2005 standards.
Programme Details:
The new programme will support and promote low energy consumption and low carbon dioxide emissions in new dwellings. There are a number of basic requirements. The dwellings must reach the following targets:
- A building energy rating (BER) of A2 or better
- Achieve an energy performance coefficient (EPC) less than 0.25 (well below the current Building Reg.s figure of 0.6)
- Achieve a carbon dioxide performance coefficient (CPC) less than 0.30 (well below the current Building Reg.s figure of 0.69)
- Generate electricity onsite (for supply or export) per unit to the equivalent of 10 kWh/m2/yr (primary) or greater.
The onsite electricity can be produced via a number of methods including, wind turbines, photo voltaic, combined heat & power etc. The key thing is that it is generated on-site and not imported from the grid.
There will also be a requirement that all of the electricity generate is used (whether directly on site or by exporting it to the grid). This will also encourage the use of smart metering.