Government proceeds with extension to Tariff Guarantees

Tariff Guarantees provide investment certainty to larger, better value for money installations on the Renewable Heat Incentive. These will make a significant contribution to our stretching, legally binding carbon targets. Under existing arrangements, eligible installations granted a tariff guarantee were required to commission by 31 January 2020.Changes laid in Parliament today will enable existing applicants to withdraw their tariff and reapply to achieve a later commissioning date, enabling a pipeline of new, large renewable heat plants.Since the implementation of Tariff Guarantees, the government has granted 43 tariff guarantees for large scale projects, the majority of which produce biomethane for injection to the gas grid.Energy and Clean Growth Minister Chris Skidmore said:As the first major economy to legislate for net zero emissions, we must act to reduce emissions from heat and industry – one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise. That’s why we’re giving investment certainty to a number of renewable industries with an extended allocation of Tariff Guarantees on the Renewable Heat Incentive.This will unlock significant investment across the renewable heat sector – an important step on our way to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.Further announcements will be made regarding the progress of this legislation in due course.These regulations put into effect changes first made public on Friday 31 May and will come into force on 17 July 2019. The regulations serve to create an extended allocation of tariff guarantees effective from the coming into force date which may commission out to 31 January 2021.These regulations also contain a full review of the current expenditure thresholds in the RHI regulations in line with our latest deployment assumptions. The legislation can be found by clicking here.The announcement can be found by clicking here.