Better late than never: A program offering payments to U.K. householders who install renewable heat technologies will be pushed back until spring 2014, the nation’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) confirmed this week, while also unveiling a new national heat strategy.

According to The Guardian, details of how the domestic renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme will work, as well as tariff levels, will be published next summer—the time at which the government previously had said the program would start.

DECC Minister Greg Barker said the government remains "committed to introducing an incentive scheme for householders" to run alongside the non-domestic RHI, which started about a year ago.

He noted that the scale of the challenge is huge, with over 80 percent of heating used in U.K. homes, businesses and industry produced by burning fossil fuels, and over a third of the U.K.’s carbon emissions coming from the energy used to produce heat.

However, this marks a further delay to the domestic RHI, which was initially intended to begin in autumn 2012, before being pushed back in September's consultation.

To cover the gap, the government will extend the Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) scheme through March 2014. The RHPP was earmarked to finish this month. Under that plan, householders may receive money to help defray the cost of installing renewable heating technologies—including: $453 for solar thermal panels; up to $1,889 for heat pumps; and $1,435 for biomass boilers. 

Image via DECC

While the money does not have to be paid back, RHPP participants may have to agree to give information about their energy usage—for example, through a survey or by having a meter installed.

New National Heat Strategy

The newly released heat strategy plan – “The Future of Heating: Meeting the challenge” – examines the potential to cut emissions from heat across the whole U.K. economy, and focuses on a number of key actions to spur on the move to low carbon heating alternatives and drive forward green growth, including:

• A $13.6-million package to help local authorities get heat network initiatives up and running in towns and cities across the country, with a new Heat Networks Delivery Unit to sit within the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) providing expert advice
• A grant of $1.5 million for the cities of Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield and Nottingham, to help them develop heat networks
• One hundred green apprenticeships to be funded primarily for young people in small-scale renewable technologies
• Up to $378,000 for a new first come, first served voucher scheme for heating installers to reduce the cost of renewable heating kit installation training, with up to $755 allotted to each individual , representing 75 percent of the cost of the training course per person
• A program that will work with specific industrial sectors to design long-term pathways to cut carbon across U.K. industry

But will the plan be enough to keep impatient critics at bay?

Paul Thompson, head of Policy at the Renewable Energy Association (REA), told The Guardian that some form of delay to the RHI was expected, but not for this length of time. "If you are not currently able to benefit from the RHI and were waiting on new tariffs then what are you meant to do - keep twiddling your thumbs?" he said. "People can cope with a delay in implementation if they know what the policy is going to be. The problem is people will now have to draw their own conclusions on how confident they are on a decision being made [in the summer]."

Davey commented, “Many homes and businesses across the UK have already switched away from fossil fuels and are using kit like biomass boilers, heat pumps and solar thermal panels to provide heat, thanks to Government support, and I want to ensure even more householders and organizations get on board.”