A recent survey has shown that 59 per cent of new applications in the first 12 months of the RHI scheme were for biomass boilers.
Of the applicants who installed a biomass system, 52 percent said grants or other funding becoming available was the trigger for installing a renewable heating system, compared with up to 34 percent for air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps and solar thermal – the other technologies supported by the incentive.
The survey also shows that 42 percent of successful applicants would not have replaced their heating system at all without the RHI. This rises to more than half, or 53 percent of biomass applicants.
However nearly half of solar thermal applicants would have installed the technology without the funding.
Biomass boilers have proven to be the technology of choice for customers off the gas grid, with 84 percent of applicants not being connected to mains gas.
Accordingly previous users of oil and LPG are 10 percent more likely, at 17 per cent, to cite the RHI as the main reason for choosing renewable technologies as those previously on gas.
There were 25,568 successful applications to the Domestic RHI between May 2014 and April 2015 from owner-occupiers.
Successful applicants to the Domestic RHI receive quarterly subsidy payments for seven years to bridge the gap between the cost of renewable heat systems and fossil fuel alternatives.