27 Oct 2009

Good Energy, the 100% renewable electricity supplier, has won the 2009 Sustainable Housing Awards’ Sustainability Innovation award for its HotROCs scheme, the UK’s first Renewable Heat Incentive.

This is the second year running that Good Energy has been honoured at the Sustainable Housing Awards, having won the award for Greenest Energy Supplier in 2008. Good Energy MD Barney Rhys Jones, who was presented with the award at Friday’s ceremony by Channel 4 news reader Jon Snow, said: “The Sustainable Housing Awards celebrate the projects and organisations at the forefront of housing sustainability best practice, and we are really pleased that HotROCs has been recognised amongst these pioneering schemes.”

Good Energy HotROCs is the UK’s first Renewable Heat Incentive. Launched in late 2008, it aims to boost the uptake of solar thermal systems (roof‐mounted solar panels used for heating water), encouraging a reduction in gas usage and carbon emissions. Funded by revenues from gas sales, HotROCs pays domestic solar thermal generators 4.5p for each unit of heat energy they produce.

Good Energy CEO Juliet Davenport added: “Once again, Good Energy is leading the industry – our experience with HotROCs proves that a Renewable Heat Incentive can work, and we expect the government to follow our lead in 2011.

“Our electricity customers had long been asking us to supply gas, but we wanted to do so only if a gas product could support renewables. This market is massively under‐represented with only 0.6% of final ‘heat’ demand in the UK from renewable sources ‐ but it has huge potential. We felt we could make a big difference by making it more accessible. Electricity generators already get the best rates on Good Energy’s HomeGen scheme. Our experience implementing microgeneration payment schemes meant that we were ideally placed to similarly incentivise renewable heat generation.”