Happy to do the hard bit…

...But mechanical contractors must embrace MCS

Last week’s announcement of the ‘premium payments’ being offered to up to 25,000 domestic consumers to encourage them to fit renewables to their homes should make all mechanical contractors sit up and take notice.

This is the forerunner to the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) due to come into play next year, but the RHI ‘proper’ is already available to the commercial sector. This is a significant business opportunity for B&ES members, but you must be accredited under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) to take advantage.

The Government believes it can grow the commercial renewables market by 700 per cent over the next decade with an estimated 110,000 installations being supported in that time.

Commercial end users will be paid up to 8.5p / kWh for heating their buildings using renewable technology including biomass, solar thermal, ground source and water source heat pumps and energy from waste. Installations can be backdated to 15 July 2009…as long as the installer was a member of the MCS. The scheme is administered by OFGEM

However, the Government can say whatever it likes about the estimated size of the market, but none of this will work without quality mechanical services input. Our industry has the most difficult part because we have the job of integrating these renewables into existing buildings and services. Popping solar thermal on a roof  or installing a heat pump is relatively straightforward, but it is the hydraulics, what happens to the water and how you control the system that really counts.

Politicians will always be blissfully unaware of the technicalities and it may well be that the market is 700 per cent larger in 2020, but all those new installations must deliver on the promise of energy and carbon savings and they won’t be if they are not correctly installed.

There has been pretty vociferous opposition to the MCS across our sector, but those of you still holding out are on a hiding to nothing. The Government is wedded to this scheme as the route to quality assurance, so if you are not in the club you will not be allowed to play the game because your clients won’t let you. They are the ones who will lose out as they cannot qualify for RHI payments unless their installation is carried out by an MCS accredited firm, which is why B&ES has set up a scheme to make accreditation more straightforward for members.

So let’s embrace it; and grab the business opportunities that are already out there before someone else does and cocks it all up.