The Department of Energy and Climate Change today issued this statement on the implementation of the Renewable Heat Incentive.

'DECC was planning to launch the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) for non-domestic generation on the 30th September 2011.  State aid approval is a necessay condition for the scheme to go ahead.  As part of that process, the European Commission has expressed concerns that the large biomass tariff is set to high.  We understand thatthe Commission have given state aid approval for the RHI, subject to a reduction in the large biomass tariff, and we expect to receive written confirmation of thi very soon.

Changing the large biomass tariff will require the RHI regulations to be amended and submitted to Parliament for approval.  We are unable to launch the scheme as a whole until this process has been completed.  Therefore, unfortunately, we will not be able to open the scheme for applications on the 30th September 2011 as we had originally planned.

Once we have recieved written confirmation from the Commission, we will make further announcement about what this means for the large biomass tariff and the timing of the launch.  We are committed to launching the scheme as soon as possible to minimise disruption to stakeholders.'

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